


A Traitor's Ascent

by Rodan427



Series: Power Rangers Ninjetti [8]
Category: Power Rangers
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-27
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-02 12:06:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 33,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8666764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rodan427/pseuds/Rodan427
Summary: Tommy lies unconscious on the battlefield.  Meanwhile, Sean's battle with Orion triggers nostalgia within Sean, and later on curiosity among his teammates.  What is his connection to Orion?  And also, what of Rocky?  Has he truly left the side of Good?  Will Tommy be rescued?  Find out today on Power Rangers: Ninjetti.





	1. Battle and Tragedy

Their friend fell.

The two women watched him, leaning through their eyes toward the monitor.

The rocks rolled out in his wake.  Dust leapt and twirled in the air, hovering about the silent man.

Haley and Trini could help him.  They could reach him.  He was only a few yards from them.  Their prayers blared and stretched out toward him.

But Tommy did not move.

Trini thought that he would roll or shift his head—or a finger.  A hand even.  Still garbed as a Ranger, his helmet lay as if a sculpture.

A line of black dripped into her peripheral vision.  Below that, a black bar cut off her vision.  Trini shuddered, tightening her throat and core.

The women were not a few yards away from Tommy.

Trini belted out a gasp.  Shuddering, she shrank away from the monitors, clutching her heart and belly.  But she stared and stared at Tommy’s body—the last person to join their first team.  Her friend of so many years.

Slipping off of a stair, she lurched backward, rolling on her ankle.  She stomped her palm upon the floor, halting herself.  Her arm trembled, her palm stung.  Tears gathered behind her eyelids but she held herself suspended.  To sink was to submit.  But her arm quivered.

“Trini?” Haley whispered from the monitors.  “Trini, talk to me.”

Shudders interrupted Trini’s gasps.  Drawing in breaths she wailed.  Unfurling her legs and releasing her arms, she flayed on the floor, whimpering now.

“Damn it,” Haley exclaimed softly.  “We can’t lose it now!” she finished.

Trini did not care.  Then she did.  But there was too much pain though.  “I have to go,” she uttered, glowering at nowhere.

“Trini, be reasonable,” Haley protested.

“I have to go.”

“Let me contact the others.”

“No.”  Yellow and white discharges crackled about Trini’s body.

“Trini, be reasonable!” Haley called out.

But Trini flew through the ceiling.

 

* * *

 

“This could be exactly what Jason wants!” Haley shouted after her.

But the streak did not return.  Haley knew it would not.

Turning back to the desk, she gaped once more at the image on the monitor.  No longer morphed, Tommy’s pale, partially obscured face lay sprawled upon the rocks and sand.

Haley shut her eyes—unable to take in more.  _Stop this,_ she coached herself.  She could divorce this.  Squishing her face together, she counted to three (foregoing the length of ten), and snapped back to work, activating the Com.  Working consciously and automatically, she glanced again at the monitor.  And then she saw it.

 

* * *

 

“Dr. O!”  Trent hurled his voice across the valley.  Dusk waned in the west.

Dr. Oliver lay immobile yards upon yards from the valley wall—from Trent.  _They’re too far now,_ Trent thought, wetting his lips.  _I can’t help him._

“Tommy!” he bellowed, hoping to hear even a faint retort.  His echoes diminished among the rocks and cliffs.  “Tommy!” he called again.

His heart rate quickened.  He breathed in more air.  None of his teammates had ever passed out during a battle.  He racked his brains, rechecking.  It had never happened.

Jason still remained, having not moved since he slashed Tommy’s middle.  Hooded now, Jason stood tall, watching the man.  The tips of his cloak billowed.

Trent sprinted to the ledge’s edge, determined to aid his mentor—ally—friend.  The drop neared!  He tugged his legs backward.  Arms swinging, he dropped, skidding, his hands and feet carving ditches in the ground.  Dust and dirt sifted into the air, swirling about him.  He gaped, looking over the edge.

The path was gone.  The one that he had followed out of the valley—it was gone.  No groves or other paths sloped from the edge.  _Where…?_ he began.  Grunting, Trent stamped to his feet.  He searched, wiping his eyes around.  Dr. O. needed his help; but he was stuck on top of this cliff!  He could not find another path!  He swore, punching his thigh.  For now, he was stuck so he sighed.  Then he prayed, staring at his friend’s defenseless body.

 

* * *

 

A spear stabbed through Sean’s heart.  His hands dipped a millimeter from his high guard.  Correcting the error and acknowledging his pain, he eyed Orion whilst listening and feeling the sounds and impressions around him.  _Dangerous of course, but necessary,_ he reminded himself.

Orion inched nearer to him, his attention undistracted.

Digging deeply into himself, Sean saturated himself with calm but no amount dissuaded his surging heart.  Tommy was wounded—he needed help.  Sean knew that in the three seconds he dematerialized for teleporting, he would be vulnerable.  Goldar and Scorpina might pause during that; but not Orion—and certainly not Scorpio if Sean were in reach.  Sean knew them.  Thus, he waited, submerging himself in the discipline of a Samurai, for the time to strike and retreat.  Orion and Scorpio could not be allowed to remain on Earth under Jason’s control.  Nothing else mattered.

Their communicators beeped. _“Guys,”_ said Haley, _“Tommy needs your help now!”_

Now anchored with calm, Sean searched for Tommy.  “He is still on earth—in the state,” he called out.

_“He was fighting Jason and now he’s down!”_

“What?” Kimberly screeched from afar.  Sean turned toward her.

Kimberly bunted a sword slash from Scorpina.  “It’s not like these guys are gonna let us leave,” he exclaimed, dodging another slash.

“Correct, Ranger!” Scorpina snarled.  She lashed out.  Ducking underneath the blow, Kimberly stabbed back with her blade blaster/dagger.

“This is our battle,” Orion declared softly.  Sean turned back.  Orion sprung, stabbing at Sean’s side.

Sean side stepped out of range.  Orion followed him.  Sean deflected the wrist powered stab.  “Your battle ended over five thousand years ago,” Sean said.  “And it was never with me.”  Orion struck again.  Sean however, locked Orion’s blade with his.  “You do not belong here anymore.”

Steel-hardened perseverance lit Orion’s eyes.

Sean shoved him backward with a gesture.  “Depart,” he commanded, grounded in authority, his power building within him.

The Greek sneered at Sean.

 _“Guys, forget them,”_ Haley insisted.  _“Tommy’s hurt!”_

“What’s wrong?” Richie asked, respiting away from the duels.

“He will die if we do not reach him,” Sean interrupted.  Waves of the other’s emotions crashed into him; but he withstood it because he knew how to.

Goldar and Scorpina grinned.

 _“Guys, Jason is still there,”_ Haley said.

Growling, Goldar flung several flames at Zack and Kimberly, knocking them to the ground in a shower of sparks.  “So even if you manage to get past us, will you last against your friend?” he taunted.  “Did Sean mention that Jason is more powerful than a puny Ranger?”

 

* * *

 

Kimberly sneered at the retort—at the golden brute.  Then she quickly realized that she still did not know how she thought about Jason.  It shocked her.  And then it annoyed her.  She had taken herself out of the battle; she was no longer trading attacks with her teammates.  Their defense had weakened.

Hitting Zack aside, Goldar advanced onto Kimberly, raising his sword overhead.

Charging forward, Adam cleaved his Axe through the air, locking his blade with Goldar’s.  “If we’re so puny,” Adam asked, “how come you never conquered this planet?”

“Whelp!”  Sneering and snarling, Goldar and Scorpina pelted the rangers with yellow and blue flames from opposite sides.

Screaming and yelling, Zack, Adam, Kimberly, Billy, and Richie collapsed.  Mustering themselves through their pain, they tried rolling away and to their feet.  However Scorpina and Goldar, pelting them and the ground with stray shots.  Kimberly screamed, covering her helmet.

Goldar laughed, halting his barrage.  “Super Z Putties,” he called.  A score of them materialized around him and his wife.  “Pulverize these pests into oblivion!” he commanded,.  “Monarch, we do this for you,” he added, holding out his hands at the sky.

Acknowledging, the Putty Patrol charged, some already drawing their bladed and sphered hands.

Gasping, groaning, and limping, Kimberly rushed to their feet and smacked a Putty from her.  She bumped into another.  Spinning around, she kicked it.  It blocked. 

 

* * *

 

Several yards away Sean parried more attacks from Orion.  He needed to leave but he stalled, waiting.  _Something else happened,_ he said.

 _“Guys, something else,”_ Haley chimed in.  _“Trini left the Lair.”_

 _That_ was what he had intuited.

 

* * *

 

Caressing his cold railing, Lord Zedd turned his supervision onto Haley.

_“Haley, where is she?” Richie asked over the com._

_“I’m checking right now,” Haley said.  But her hands hovered inches above the keyboard._

“That will cost you!” Lord Zedd declared, spraying Tommy’s property with lightning.

 

* * *

 

Shaking her head, she dividing one of the monitor screens, drawing up her locating program.  California and Nevada appeared.  An icon flashed in California.  Her eyes glued to the icon, Haley zoomed in.  Each time, the picture pixelated and refocused.  “I almost got it,” she.  “Wait!”  Snow twisted and blurred the image.  The screen turned blank and white.  She refreshed the screen.  Nothing occurred.  “Damn it!” Haley slammed her hands on the desk.

 _“What’s going on?”_ Zack asked over the com.  His voiced crackled and softened. 

“Lord Zedd must be blocking me or her.”

 _“Say again, Haley,”_ Adam interjected.

“I lost her signal.”

 

* * *

 

“Quit your incessant chatter!” Lord Zedd snapped, spinning his staff in his hands.  Swinging it toward the Rangers, he fired.  “And leave the distraught women alone!”

 

* * *

 

 _“Stay on it, Haley,”_ Richie commanded.  _“I have an … need tha… —fied.  We’ll get—”_

Haley nodded quickly several times, activating her signal diagnostic programs.  “I know you will,” she whispered, already assessing her contingencies.  _Just don’t forget about Tommy._

 

* * *

 

Lord Zedd roared with laughter.  “Oh, by all means don’t forget about poor, dear Tommy!  But what can you do tucked away in your cave?!  Isolated like poor, little Trini?”

 

* * *

 

Miles away, Trini watched the saucepan.  Water rippled and steamed within it.

Trini sat a mug beside the stove.  The teabag resting beside the puddle of honey.

 _Richie needs to buy a teapot,_ she remarked, folding her arms.

She glanced left out of the window.  She contemplated making a sandwich.  Her stomach groaned again.  Closing her eyes and rolling them, she sided with her nausea.

Deciding the water was hot enough, she poured it into the mug.  The honey dissolved.  The teabag bled into the water.  Brownish red.

She looked away.  The scent followed her, crawling into her nose.  Trini closed her eyes, praying to escape.  _I could teleport again.  But where?  Where else could I go?_

The scent remained.  The tea’s color.  Tommy’s ashen face.  His eyes closed.  The hairs on her arms stood up.  Jason’s aura brushed her own.

 _I could teleport away,_ she thought, her breathing quickening.  _Another planet.  So many support life._   She could find one.

Shivering, she sniffed.  _And go where?_ she scoffed. _Mars?  Aquitar?  Edenoi?  Places I’ve never been?_   She scoffed, shaking her head.  This wasn’t helping her.

Grimacing, she curved around. 

Steam leapt and curled into the still air, carrying the tea’s scent.  _It’s tea,_ she reminded herself.  _Tea._   It had always been tea.  It smelled delicious.  The color nauseated her.

Her lips and cheeks trembled.  Mashing her eyelids shut, she whipped her head around several times.

 _But Tommy,_ she thought.  His face flashed in her mind.

Straightening herself, she turned inward, drawing on her power.  “Stay alive, Tommy,” she whispered through prayer.  “Stay alive.”

Her heart steadied.  Her hairs relaxed.  She opened her eyes and stood, glancing about the kitchen. 

Then she looked again at the tea mug.  Taking hold of the handle, she brought it close to her mouth.  The mug’s warmth grazed her fingers and lips, soothing the tips of her lingering worries.  Calmness and contentment spread about her.  Deciding against burning her tongue, she replaced the mug on the counter.  The color was just right, ruby red.  It had not been blood at all.  Pulling up the bag, she tossed it into the sink.

Gazing outward the half sized window, she took in the back yard.  Three squirrels chased each other in a narrow strip of meadow, running across each other.  Tree branches swayed overhead, reflecting a gentle breeze.

Nevertheless, her thoughts returned to her friends.  Richie, Kimberly, Sean, Zack, Billy, and Adam ( _Adam,_ she lamented) were fighting for their lives now only miles away while she was safe in this house.

However that was not what had driven her.  Even now, as it had been when she had first arrived here and scrubbed away all evidence of her rape, inaudible whispers lingered beyond her hearing.  Intangible fingertips tickled her senses.  The tickling had changed now.  She glanced downward at the thicket near the center of the yard.  Someone was hiding there.  Trini froze.

 

* * *

 

Limping and staggering forward, Scorpio stabbed a pincer at Sean’s shins and calves.

Sean hopped over it.  Orion circled behind Scorpio.  Sean backed up, holding his sword in a high guard.  He pivoted, keeping Scorpio and Orion in his vision.  His blade flashed emerald.  Orion slinked forward beside Scorpio.  Sean sliced down through the air.  A torrent of emerald bolts slammed into and raked across the duo.  Staggering and moaning, they halted.  Sean slashed horizontally, striking them with more energy.  Smote and overridden, they collapsed to the ground, twitching and wincing.  Scorpio jerked its pincers, barely slapping the ground.

Grimacing, Orion glared into Sean’s visor.  He stabbed his fingers into the ground, pulling himself eight inches further but then sank onto his side, but clutching Sean’s eyes with his.  He puffed his cheeks.  Then he opened his jowls, revealing his teeth.

Exhaling and breathing in, Sean eyed the warriors from myth.  _From history,_ he corrected and lamented.  _Memory._   Turning his head away, he pivoted from them.  “Rangers!” he called out, blowing his spirit into them.

“Sean!” Orion blared after him.

In answer, Sean sheathed his sword.  “You were called to defend the earth over a decade ago.  Now you must do so again whether whole or broken:  persevere.  Stand.  Fight!”

“Come… _back_ here!” Orion barked.

Sean glanced back at Orion.  The warrior-turned-slave staggered in a crouched lunge, squeezing his fists in effort.

 _His pain must be excruciating,_ Sean quickly thought.  A tear moistened his left eye.  Blinking the tear back, Sean turned from Orion and stepped toward the fray.  “Meet me when you are finished,” he commanded his team.  Satisfied, he teleported away.

 

* * *

 

“SEAN!” Orion roared to the sky.  He stomped into a crouch.

Goldar stepped in his way.  “Can you add to this battle, Earthling?” he asked.

Sneering and trembling, Orion gritted his teeth.  “Out of my way!”

Goldar flicked the tip of his sword at Orion’s heart.  “You and your beast will return to the palace until you learn how you failed today!”

“What right hav—AHH!”  Sprayed with yellow flames, he and Scorpio vanished.

Pivoting around, Goldar loomed before the Rangers, bloodlust soaking his eyes.  Gnashing his teeth, he growled.

 

* * *

 

Billy knocked a putty to the ground.

“That takes care of those two,” Zack commented from nearby.

Billy visually confirmed.  _Better odds,_ he calculated.

“Still leaves these guys,” Zack continued, busy with another putty.  “We need to cut this at the head.”

“Agreed,” Billy said.

Zack glanced at his friend.  “I can’t get to them though,” he said.

“Not necessary.”  Dropping his lance, Billy stretched out his fingers and immediate wrath, seizing and clutching five nearby putties.  Motionless and helpless in his grip, Billy hurled them overhead at Goldar and Scorpina.

The two fighters jumped and flipped over the hurled bodies, flicking molten flames at Billy.  The Blue Ranger stumbled under the assaults.  Zack pushed him out of the way.

“I’m alright,” Billy said.  “Cover me.”

Zack nodded.

Landing already, Goldar and Scorpina spun around, leering at Billy.

His suit charred in places, Billy hurried to meet them, pulling his Lance to him.  Whirling it around, he crashed it against the duo’s double parry.

“You have our attention,” Scorpina said, gracing him with a smile. 

Goldar growled in amusement.

“Now what do you _want?_ ” she snapped.  Kicking Billy away, they hurled fire at him. 

Scorched further, Billy stood his ground.  His inner fire burned hotter than theirs, funneled with his focus.  He hardened his aura. The fire balls slid around and away from him.  Advancing two paces, he parried and struck, searching for any weakness amongst the two, even if it was a strategy on how to exhaust them.  All the while he maintained his poise.  In his focus—his center—he had all the energy he needed.

 

* * *

 

“Dr. O.,” Trent whispered.  Sucking in larger breaths, he glanced around.

The ledge was steep, yielding no plants to cling to, or safe way down.  Plus, he could not morph.  He gnashed his teeth, snarling.  Then he shook his head at those thoughts.  _Dr. O. needs help,_ he thought.

He jumped.  Half tumbling and half sliding, he steadied himself with his hands and knees down the valley wall.  “Dr. O!” he yelled across the quarry.  Landing, he scrambled to his feet, and then charged toward his mentor—advocate—friend’s side, his eyebrows high but his eyelids narrow.  “Jason!” he barked.  “Get out of here!  Go!”

Jason continued standing there, watching Tommy.  The edges of his cloak billowed faintly.

Trent sprinted now, pumping his arms.

Jason still remained.  A shadow blotted the ground around Tommy’s upper body.

 _Those aren’t shadows,_ Trent thought.  He quickened his sprint.  _Hold on!_

A force crashed into him, hurling him into the air.  He landed some yards back, his forearms scraped.  Groaning, he looked up.

He gaped.  He had been right.  Magic hour sprayed Tommy’s ashen skin with a pseudo-coat.

Panting, Trent glared at Jason, squeezing his hands into fists.  “I told you to _leave!_   GO!” Trent roared, his hair shaking about his head.

“How?” whispered the Monarch.

The younger man paused, considering.  Once more he remembered that he had no powers and even though he had stood up to and fought a powerful monster with Kira, Connor, and Ethan without their powers, Jason was sure to be stronger than the Terrorsaurus—even Mesogog.

“How can you defeat me when Tommy couldn’t?”

“I’m not Tommy,” Trent replied.

“But you’re frightened.  Your stance is feeble.”  Trent tried to interject.  “You don’t even bore me.”

Jason was right.  The truth rattled Trent’s knees.  He struggled not to bow his head.

“How can you help Tommy?” Jason asked.

The question stoked the lit coals within Trent.  Reckless and brave, he pulled his fist back, ready to charge and punch this man ( _monster even,_ he thought) before him.

 _Stay your hands, Trent,_ a voice commanded from his mind.

Trent staggered, staring downward and then around.  Jason however raised his gaze, looking beyond Trent.  Touching down from the sky, Sean materialized between Jason and Trent.

“Sean?” Trent asked.

“Do not attack him,” the Ranger instructed.

Trent jerked a hand toward Tommy’s head.  “But—”

“I am aware of it or I would not be here.  Stand and listen.”

Glaring, Trent complied, folding his arms across his chest.

“Monarch,” Sean addressed.  Jason inclined his chin a centimeter toward Sean.  “Would you stand aside?”

Jason breathed in and sighed.  Seconds ticked by.  His eyes did not move.  “The air… it’s nice this evening.”  A grace exuded from him.

Trent’s stomach churned because he knew Jason was not lying.

“Indeed,” said Sean.  “However, I do not wish for nightfall to claim this man.”

“He’s a member of your team.”  Jason glanced at Sean.  “I understand.  Bear with me as I pay my respects.”  He cupped his hands before him, bowing his head to Tommy.

“No,” Sean replied calmly.

Jason raised his eyebrows and breathing in, met Sean’s gaze.

Trent bit his lip, swiveling his toes into the rocks underneath him.  They sank a couple of centimeters but he did not notice.  The men before him stood so calm in all appearances—clearly ready for battle if needed.  That was expected.  Nevertheless, goose bumps sprang up the back of his neck and his palms dampened.  He inched backward.  Sean and Jason continued staring into each other, neither one moving.

“You sent Orion and Scorpio against me,” Sean said, “In an effort to delay or waylay me.  Calculated… but I question if you were foolish in doing so.”

“Rita and Zedd deserve the thanks.  And my pride.”

“Tommy is dying, you sack of urine!” Trent snapped.

Jason turned his eyes on the young man.  “Again,” he purred, “what can you do to help him?”

“What he knows cannot save Tommy,” Sean interrupted.  “My knowledge can.”

Jason shrugged.  “So do it… or are you uneasy?”

“Leave, Jason,” Sean requested.  “Please.”

“No.”

Silence swelled among them.  More goose bumps sprang down Trent’s back and legs.  He waited, darting his eyes back and forth between the two.  Both warriors looked as though they could kill the other—and with relative efficiency.  Even with Sean’s face blocked, Trent somehow saw and felt this.  _So if they fight,_ he wondered, _who would win_ _?_

“He failed the test of the Samurai,” Jason said.  “You have no right to deny this honor from me.”

 _You cocky, inhuman bastard!_ Trent mentally swore.

Jason jerked his right palm at Trent.  Sean threw out his left hand at Jason.  A gust rippled through Trent’s hair and clothes.  He gasped, holding his breath.  _What just…?_

“Let him be,” Sean commanded.

Jason pinned his eyes on Sean.

 

* * *

 

Meanwhile, miles away, Zack swatted another Putty Patroller away.  The two second respite had been great, but Zack could not hurl a bunch like Billy had.  Plus he doubted tossing Goldar, Scorpina, and the putties around would convince them to leave.  If it would have Billy would have done it already.  _There’s gotta be a way,_ Zack thought while exchanging blows.  _All we’re doing is tiring ourselves out.  If we can’t destroy these guys…_

He locked blades with one.

_We can retreat, but if we run every time—and we’re in a city that time, they’ll overrun it.  Can’t let that happen.  Have to find a way!_

The putty snuck in a punch at his stomach, shattering Zack’s breath.  He toppled over.  Cursing himself, Zack hopped back to his feet, tensing his arms in restraint.  Destroying these putties, while possible, would only worsen their odds.

 _Man, if I just had the Mastodan,_ he thought, _I’d crush these guys._   Freezing this Putty Patrol with his old dinozord would have definitely stopped them.  Even as he focused more on the battle he wished that he had some of his zord’s freezing power.  But that power had never been his.  It belonged to the Mastodon.  This was further proved when it had been reconstituted into the Lion Thunderzord,that power had never transferred.  _Ever!_

“But I’m still here,” Zack spoke under his breath, embracing the truth as he spoke it.  Several of his friends had lived through several lines of Zords, some as much as six if not seven.  Plus, the Power had always been there, changing in form and degree.  Dozens of Power Rangers had lost their powers over the years but the Power was never destroyed.  Zack was still here, a conduit of that Power.  And he had even frozen a monster without the Mastodon:  Turban Shell.

Zack yelled, focusing his energy and attention.  Jumping into the air, he slammed his heel into three putty’s chests, knocking them to the ground.

Even though the Lion Thunderzord was gone, Zack now commanded a powerful zord, the Liger Ninjazord, guided by a soul much more superior than either the Mastodon or Lion.  _Or…_

He had to think about this before he could phrase it.

Perhaps Zack was wise enough now to tap into more of himself and his ranger powers than he could have back then.  The Liger had changed from a Lion.  _What if I could change too?_ he wondered.

Kimberly had changed by tapping into her power unconsciously.  Billy had trained with his for almost a decade.  What if Zack consciously brought his out?  He did not need to know what it was.  _Kimberly hadn’t,_ he though, realizing immediately that the same could have been true for Billy.  Zack had frozen Turban Shell’s hide when he had sprayed it with water.  Maybe he could do the same thing again.  He glanced about him.  There were no water sources around.

Zack sank more into the battle, feeling the rhythms and seeing the tides as they were.  He could not defeat these putties as he was.  _It’s like starting all over again,_ he thought, remembering his first battle with Rita Repulsa’s ‘regular’ Putties.  Even doing their best and making some progress, he, Kimberly, Billy, Trini, and Jason had ultimately failed as civilians.  Only by morphing had they gained the upper hand; but their success had not been because of their powers.  After that fight, Zack and his team had no problems fighting the putties as civilians.  An idea came to him.

“Ninjetti!” he called out, “Liger!”  His costume reverted to the fabric Ninjetti suit.  His Sais vanished. 

“Zack, you okay?” Kimberly shouted over to him.

Zack stepped around a Patroller.  “Yeah, I’m good.”  Using his leather gauntlets and high boots, he deflected most attacks while dodging the others along with the concussive and fiery blasts.  However, a trickle of doubt entered his thoughts, but he flicked it away.  “No time for that now,” he muttered.  He bounced on the balls of his feet, diving into the Hip-Hop-Kido martial art he had fashioned.  Half dancing, half fighting, he deepened his engagement, returning to his roots and merging them with his present.  Aligned in his being, he stalled more attacks, and stood longer against the Putties.

Nevertheless, the rangers were losing.  “Billy!  Adam!” Richie called out.  “We have to retreat!”

“No,” Billy answered, crushing any objection.  He then swung his Lance at Goldar.  However, Goldar slapped the blow aside.  Billy tilted off balance, straightening his feet.  Goldar slammed his fist into Billy’s solar plexus.  Billy lurched, inaudibly gasping.  Stepping backward, Goldar hurled a boulder sized fireball into Billy.  Thrown back, Billy fell.  Dizzy, he fought to stay conscious—to stay morphed.  _I must,_ he thought.

Leering and grinning, Scorpina pivoted around.  Targeting the other rangers, she shot blue flames at them, knocking them off balance.  The Super Z Putties fired, pelting the rangers.

Zack gripped his left upper arm.  Blood splotched his gloved fingertips.  _Maybe not the best idea,_ he thought, wincing, _to have morphed._   He smirked.  _They’re going for blood._

Pointing their blades and fingers at them, the putties coiled around the rangers, tightening their ranks.  Goldar and Scorpina grinned, joining the ring.

Worn, bruised, charred, and scraped, the Rangers crouched and stood together, touching each other.

“Billy,” Kimberly began.

“I know.  Don’t say it.”

Zack stared at the score and their commanders.  _Now’s a good a time as ever,_ he thought.  He just wished he knew what he could do.  Then it hit him!  He did not need to know.  He already knew.  Closing his eyes, he meditated.  _Ice age,_ he chanted, ignoring skeptical thoughts from his ego.  He exhaled.  Fog and mist sprayed from his core and limbs, billowing around the patrol in front of him.

The putties wiggled, covering their faces with their hands.  Patches of frost plated their bodies, holding them rigid.

Snatching up Scorpina, Goldar flew into the air, snarling.

“Great job, Zack!” Kimberly exclaimed.

Breathing in, Zack opened his eyes, dissolving his fog and mist.  “They might thaw,” he mentioned.

“Doesn’t matter,” Billy said.  “Let’s get out of here.”

“Right!” they chorused.  Clasping their belts they teleported away.

 

* * *

 

Goldar stamped to the ground, Goldar smote a stone with his sword.  Flames sprayed from his sword.  “Curses!” he roared.

 _“Goldar!  Get those putties back up here before they shatter or melt!”_ Lord Zedd shouted in his ear.  _“And don’t dawdle!”_

“Yes, Lord Zedd.  At once.”

 _“I said_ hurry _you simpleton!”_

Bowing his head, Goldar growled but obeyed.

 

* * *

 

The katanas locked once more, staving off a double beheading.  Jason and Sean stared across the torrents of steel.

His eyes nailed to the action, Trent shook his head repeatedly.  _Every blow is lethal,_ he thought.  _If they make a mistake…_   He blinked in awe.

Sean and Jason parted.  Jason swung upward diagonally.  Sean leaned underneath it.  Stepping behind and rising, he swung at Jason’s upper back but Jason lunged and stepped away.  Stepping further away, they faced each other, resting their weapons at their sides.  Neither one panted.  Instead they glared across the air and sand, several feet further but equal distant from Tommy.

 _They’re far enough now,_ Trent noticed.  Nodding he crept toward Tommy.  The ground rustled and groaned under his shoes.  Still, he pinned his sight on the samurais.

Sean stabbed at Jason’s center, but the Monarch stepped and pivoted from it.  Impossibly fast, the two tornados spun about each other in blurs.

Eyeing Tommy peripherally, Trent slowly knelt down, stifling a gasp.  Ignoring the blood moat, Trent leaned in, peering at Tommy’s head.  He sighed.  His stomach jerked.  He turned, forcing down the vomit.  Successful, he resumed studying Tommy.  He then watched the pair, wishing he could help but knowing that this battle was beyond his skill.  If Jason did not leave, Tommy would die.  And Trent could not call his team for help.

Bracing Tommy’s head and arms, Trent turned Tommy over.  More blood leaked out of the long slash.  Unbuttoning his top shirt, Trent tore it off him.  Bundling it up he dabbed at the wound.  Blobs and creeks of waxy blood obscured its shape.  _This is no place for this_ , Trent remarked.

Stray discharges struck and crackled about him.  He ducked, covering Dr. Oliver’s head, and wishing again he had his morpher and gem.

 

* * *

 

“Haley!” Billy called.  Crossing to the monitors, he and the others removed their helmets.

Haley glanced over her shoulder.  “Good to see you guys.  And congrats,” she added to Zack.

“Celebrate later,” he said.  “What’s going on?”

Pointing, Kimberly gasped. 

“God,” Richie swore.

“At least Trent’s with him,” Adam said.

“We need to get him out of there,” Zack said.

“Guys, also,” Kimberly pointed again.  Several yards away from Tommy and Trent, Jason and Sean continued their lethal dance.

“Billy, what do you think will work?” Richie asked.

“Hard to tell.”

“An Ultrazord would be great,” Zack mentioned.

Kimberly nodded.

“I can access the zords by remote but I don’t think you want to incinerate Tommy,” Haley mentioned, showing her venom.  “But we do have some contingencies.”  Her fingers snapped across the keyboard, pulling up a few simultaneous displays on the second monitor.  “Take a look.  Billy, can you—” She glanced at him.

“Sean won’t split his focus.  I can’t get through.”

“So what do we do?” Zack asked.

“Wait and stay ready.”

“No offence, guys,” Richie chimed in, “But can we match them?”

“I can,” Billy said.

“Billy, I know you’re strong, but… can you really?”

Billy glared into Richie’s eyes.  “Yes, I can,” he spoke.

 

* * *

 

Sean stared across the locked blades, standing upon the sacred ground, the ground where Tommy had begun his journey as a true power ranger.  Encouraged by this, he stared into his enemy.  He pushed into Jason.

Breaking away, Sean back stepped into a lunge, stabbing his finger through the air at Jason, hurling the demigod backward.  Jason slammed into the ground.  An eighth of a second later, Jason rose to his feet, covering his right side with a hand.  Tommy must have hurt him there.  Sean had punctured Jason’s defenses, defenses Jason had spent years mastering and adapting.  Jason still needed to improve.

Sean advanced.  Leaping forward, he stabbed at Jason.  Stepping back, Jason leaned away and ducked beneath it.  Pivoting around, Sean whipped his blade around, his hilt now aimed at Jason.  The Monarch stood, bringing his katana to parry.  But Sean dragged his katana across Jason’s neck.

Jason collapsed, gathering his breath.  Sean back-stepped out of range, leaving Jason time to choose to depart.  The rocks behind him lay silent.  The wind settled about Sean. 

Jason rose his head, eyeing Sean, and nodded to Sean.   _You are my enemy, Jason,_ Sean communicated, _Regardless of relation._

A pink laser blast struck the ground, scattering some pebbles and rocks.

Immediately, Zack, Adam, Kimberly, Billy, and Richie winged Sean.  Cocked in cannon mode, Adam aimed his Axe at Jason.  Kimberly notched an arrow.  Billy, Richie, and Zack aimed their blades at Jason.

Sean smiled in honor of his teammates.  “Welcome, my friends.  I am glad you arrived,” he said.  “The details can wait, though.”

A unison ki-yah met him.

“Impressive,” Jason said.  “Did you come for Tommy?” Jason asked, still bowing his head.  “Or me?”

“Obvious, isn’t it?” Kimberly answered, aiming her arrow at Jason.

“Vengeance doesn’t become a ranger.”

“Says an evil Ninjetti,” Adam retorted.  “Looks like Sean got you twice.”

Jason touched the left side of his jaw.  He examined his fingertips.  “Three times,” he corrected.

“Trent,” Sean called out while staring at Jason, “Use my communicator.”  The band left his arm, materializing around Trent’s wrist.  “Contact Haley.  Keep Tommy alive.”

“I need him to stay,” Jason said.  He stepped forward.

Kimberly, Zack and Richie stiffened, jerking an inch back but straightened.  “Not an option,” Kimberly declared.  She shot him.  Jason dodged it, and shot back with _chi_ , shoving her to her knees and hands.

Adam shot Jason with his cannon.  The blast grazed him.  Faster than sprinting, Jason swung his katana at Zack.  Billy’s Power Lance and Sean’s katana swung across.  Blocked, Jason stopped.  Sean and Billy pushed Jason back.  Jason switched his footing.  Lance and katanas spun and clashed through the air, their clangs echoing throughout the valley.  Again and again, Jason struck back.  Billy and Sean swung their weapons through the air, weaving their assaults together, protecting their teammates.

Richie joined in.  Zack followed.  Kimberly, armed with her blade/blaster as a dagger, joined also.  Still, as Sean feared, despite their numbers and skills, they could not beat Jason alone.  Plus they had openings.

Ignoring them however, Jason targeted Billy.

Billy flicked a finger.  A shockwave rippled through the air, tossing Richie, Kimberly, Zack and Adam away.  _Rest_ , he communicated.  Advancing, he attacked Jason.

Stepping away and lowering his blade, Sean allowed this, watching his students.

Genius level nerd turned warrior, he held his ground against the demonized jock.  Jason welcomed it.  Former teacher and former student, chi projection against telekinesis—their energies protecting their weapons and suites, they tore through the air and ground.  The clanging of their weapons drowned out their breaths.  Still, they pushed on.  Pride ignited within Sean.  His students were almost equal.

Meanwhile, Kimberly, Richie, Zack, and Adam regrouped around Sean.  The Green Ranger stood tall, watching the battle without even flicking a glance at the others.  “Well done, young ones,” he said.  “Watch them,” Sean instructed, nodding at Billy and Jason.  “Listen to their rhythms.”

The others watched.

“Now attack.”

Leaping forward, Kimberly swung her bow down like a spear.  Jason dodged it.  She stabbed, and then swung at Jason’s nearest arm.  Jumping in, Adam plowed his Axe at Jason’s heart.

Jason sliced through the Bow and Axe’s handle.  Spinning around, he stabbed through the air, scrapping Kimberly’s hip.  She collapsed, rolling immediately for safety.

Sean stabbed through the fray at Jason’s heart. 

Stepping out of the way, Jason vanished.

Sean felt for his student.  “Discard your weapons; then resummons them,” Sean instructed.

Kimberly and Adam did so. 

“Adam, start forming the Power Blaster,” whispered, pivoting.  “We’ll use my sword instead of Rocky’s,” he added.

“Already am.”

“Right.  Power Axe!”

“Power Bow!”

“Power Daggers!”

“Power Lance!”

“Power Sais!”

“Sword of the Phoenix!” Sean added, tossing his sword above atop the crossbow cannon.  Then he sensed him.

Jason materialized, looming over Tommy and Trent.

The younger man gaped and gulped at Jason, still covering Tommy’s wound.  Trent held his ground.

“Fire!” Sean ordered.

Winged by his teammates, Billy fired the Blaster.

Jason pivoted around.  Six neon energy beams stabbed through the air toward him, tongues of crimson gold discharges whipping from them.  Jason pushed out his hand.  A gale of molten flames slammed into the Rangers’ blast, halting it and beating them with heat waves.  Stray discharges of mixed hues stabbed from their impact, strafing the ground.  Bending at their knees, they held each other up.  Still, neither side yielded.

“We’re not getting closer!” Kimberly shouted.

“Keep going!” Zack yelled.  “We have to!”

“Focus!” Billy encouraged, telekinetically pushing directly against Jason’s surge.  “Adam—if you can—push with me!”

Still contributing to the combined power, Adam focused a small bit of concentration at Jason’s surge.  The flames twitched backward somewhat.  He continued.

“Extend your focus through the weapon’s beams,” Sean instructed, adding an extra portion.

 

* * *

 

In the Lair, Haley shook her head at her readings.  “Guys, be careful,” she prayed, knowing that they needed to concentrate.  “The Power Blaster was never designed for this.”  She sighed.  “I wish I could help them.”

 

* * *

 

The flames receded but remained.  Jason smirked.  He breathed in, calm and relaxed in his center, legs unmovable.  Then, increasing his power, he shoved with faster and greater force.  His flames plowed through the Ranger’s beams.

Releasing his shoulder grip, Sean jumped into the air.

The Power Baster shattered.  Fire rammed into the Rangers, carrying them background into the air.  They crashed and tumbled onto the ground.

Flipping overhead, Sean stretched out his left fingers at Jason, pelting and enshrouding the Monarch in a fog of pale emerald lightning.  Jason stood majestic at its apex, unflinching.  Falling further, Sean drew his Dagger to eye level, aiming for Jason’s forehead.

“Another time,” Jason said and vanished.


	2. Drifting into the Hereafter

Landing, Sean impaled the ground where Jason had stood.  He squeezed his eyes against the anger and frustration scraping within him, searching for the calm he had mastered—the calm he needed now.  Had he only a second more, he could have formed and slammed a Dragon Buster into Jason but Sean had not focused for that.  Plus, that attack would not have destroyed Jason.

Such thoughts were useless now.  Those events had finished, relics lingering in his memory with only imagination to alter them—instead of realistic action.  He did not have time for anger now, and that irritated him!

Jason had succeeded.  It did not matter how the rangers had neutralized the Putties (even though that was a terrific achievement) because the Putties had been a diversion just as Scorpio and Orion had been—even Goldar and Scorpina.  The other rangers were tired and worn now.  Sean was tired and unfocused.  And he was the only person that could save Tommy’s life.  Without a full team and with all of them battle worn, asking them for help could be too much.  Yes, Tommy, Adam, Kimberly, Billy, Aisha, and Rocky had revived Zordon after destroying Ivan Ooze; but as impressive as his team was, the others had never tried to save someone slipping into death.  Therefore Sean needed to be able to save Tommy alone, which is why he had held back in his battle with Jason.  Killing Jason had never been Sean’s objective.  He needed simply to drive Jason off planet and Jason had left.  However, the price may have been too great.  And Sean may have unconsciously changed his objective when the Power Blaster exploded.  He would have to ruminate about that later.

Opened his eyes, he staggered to his feet and trudged over to Trent’s side.  “Are you hurt, Trent?” Crouching beside Trent, he physically and psychically assessed Tommy’s vitals and wounds.  Fragments of Tommy’s skin, hair, and skull littered a patch within the pool.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Trent said.  “How is he?”

“Help me get his head in my lap.  Smooth and easy,” he added, sitting cross legged.  Delicately, they managed, protecting Tommy’s head and core.  The scabs cracked however.  Blood leaked from them.  Trent winced.  Sean chose to be calm.  “You did well, Trent.  Thank you.  Trent tossed his head up and down.  _Tommy,_ Sean began, _can you hear me?_

Tommy did not stir.

 _Please, answer me,_ Sean urged.

“Will he be al—?”

“Trent, I need you to check on my friends,” Sean interrupted with a calmer, collected voice, his eyes never leaving Tommy.  “They are injured and need help.”

“But what about—?”

“I am helping Tommy,” Sean said, a finality in his voice.  “We have no time for an ambulance to find us.  And you left your phone in Tommy’s Jeep, correct?”  Again, the youth nodded.  “Very well.”  Sean’s shield and arm bands shined with golden energy.  The glow flowed down his arms over Tommy’s chest, spreading over it like a blanket.  “Go!” he added.

Daring not to challenge Sean, but reluctant nevertheless, Trent backed away, jogging across the valley.

 _Thank you for your service, Trini,_ Sean prayed.  _Your compassion is most welcome.  Rest now in the place you reside._

Trini’s presence, her energy, left Tommy’s form.   

Sean bowed to her.

 

* * *

 

Smoke crawled into the sky from sparse fires scattered around the rangers.  Zack, furthest from Trent, wobbled to his feet, gasping and wincing.  Stability left and returned to his limbs.  Catching his breath he glanced around him.  All of his friends lay sprawled about the ground, demorphed like him.  And they were silent.

“No!  No!  _Guys!_ ” Zack screamed, hurrying to them.  “Richie!  Billy!  Kim!  Kim!”  Panic entered his heart.  He dove beside her.

With a gasp of air, Kimberly shot upright, her forearms twitching.  “Oh, thank God for practice!” she gasped.

“Are you alright?” Zack exclaimed, his face breaking with panic.

“Sorta…” Kimberly wheezed.  “First electrocuted, and now blown up.  I guess Jason doesn’t like us.”  She added, trying to push herself up.  Her arms gave out.

Zack held out his hand.  “He’s definitely not getting my Christmas card.”  Zack flashed a faint smile, forcing a chuckle.  “I might send him one just to piss him off.”

“Might work.”  Kimberly whirled her head around, scanning the scene. 

Moaning and groaning, their friends stirred, waving their limbs like tentacles.

“Billy!” Zack called, hurrying to his friend’s side, but wincing through his limb. “You okay?” Zack asked, applying a hand to Billy’s back for support as Billy got to his feet.

“Yeah, I surmise,” Billy said. 

“Never been gladder to be morphed,” Adam supplied from nearby.

“I bet.” Zack turned.  Squatting, he shook Richie’s shoulder.  “You okay?”

“I’ll be alright,” Richie said, pushing himself upright.  Wincing sharply, he lowered himself down again.  “After I get some ice… and a cocktail or four.”

Zack cracked a smile.

“Hey,” Trent called out.  “You guys okay there?”

“Barely,” Adam called out, waving only a hand with his face plastered in the sand.

Billy crossed over to him.

Zack turned.  He hobbled over, extending a hand.  Sean and Tommy were specks now.  He gaped.  “What?   Did Jason shove us across the valley?”

“More or less,” Trent answered.  “Good to see you breathing,” he added, panting.

Zack managed a sigh and winced afterward.  “Not sure if I sympathize.”  He winced again.

 

* * *

 

Across the rocks, Sean deepened his meditation.  _Tommy, I need you to tap into the power I am giving you.  Use it to heal yourself._

Nothing responded.  Sean increased the power flowing into Sean.  _Reach with your will.  Bridge it with your morphing power._

Still Tommy did not respond.  Nevertheless, life dwelled within him (Sean felt it), but it was sinking quickly.

_White Ranger, hearken to my call!_

Tommy breathed in and then sank into unconsciousness.

“It is not your time to die!” Sean yelled flattening his left hand on Tommy’s chest, while placing his right hand over his shield’s emblem.  Instantly, the shield teleported down Sean’s arm as a surge of gold and green lined energy, materializing over Tommy’s bloodstained chest.

 

* * *

 

Chard pieces of the Rangers’ Power Weapons littered the ground in a tossed around heap.  “Quite a mess,” Zack commented.

“I’m sure we can fix them,” Richie added.

“Richie, I don’t think you realize how close we came to losing our powers back there.”

“There’s no proof we haven’t,” Kimberly mentioned.

“I doubt we lost them,” Billy said.  “A number of our bones would have broken if that were true.”

“Good pain versus bad pain,” Adam muttered.

Halting, Zack’s eyes widened in surprise.  “Whoa,” he gasped, pointing to Sean and Tommy.  “Guys, come on!” he quickened his pace.

 

* * *

 

Sean breathed in once more, centering his being.  He grasped the top of the shield.  Tiny and faint waves of green energy coasted down his arms into Tommy, sinking into the man’s still pale skin.

 _Falcon, heed my plea:  aid your companion once more!_ he beseeched, sustaining Tommy’s life-force with his own.  _Tommy—White Ranger—Falcon: you are one and stronger than this!  Rise and soar beyond this toil!  Ninjetti Ranger of Light… come forth!_

Sean’s words traversed the silence of Tommy’s mind, searching for more to grasp onto.  Opening himself to the psychic impressions laden in the surroundings, he stared into the recent past, watching what Tommy had endured in the last five minutes.  Releasing a tear, Sean bowed his head to his friend.  Resolved once more, and drawing strength from the source of the tear, Sean reinforced their link.

 _Tommy,_ he projected, _Rise beyond your wounds.  Life within you has not ended so I ask that you not yield to death’s lure._

Tommy breathed in deeply in answer.

 _Good,_ Sean thought, harnessing his rising joy at this sign.

The two men remained still.  An aura of golden light, solid and wavy, flowed out of Sean’s heart, down his arms, and into Tommy’s chest, surrounding it with a halo and connecting their souls.  Phoenix and Falcon conversed, the former prodding and encouraging the latter.

 

* * *

 

Adam, Kimberly, Zack, Richie, and Trent watched from afar.  Zack squinted through the failing light.  “Is that Sean’s shield over Tommy?” he asked.

“I think so,” Trent said.  “That’s what he was doing when I left.”

“I didn’t think that was possible,” Zack muttered.  He had worn that shield in battle years ago to heal his wounds and reenergize but that had had been only temporary.

Nudging and supporting each other, they hiked closer to their friends.

 

* * *

 

Sean pulled Tommy closer to him.  Tommy’s head lay upon Sean’s chest.  Blood stained Sean’s gloves and torso.

He did not care.  Light and love spawned from Truth welled within him into power, inflating him beyond mortality.  He raised his head, accepting and giving at the same time.  Inspired, he raised his left hand to Tommy’s forehead, touching his fingertips and thumb around the wound, caressing the tender skin gently.  Shifting his right hand, he caressed the tender skin around the abdominal gash.

Tommy jerked in protest, wincing.

“I am here as your friend,” Sean conveyed.

Tommy relaxed.

Gently, Sean brushed both wounds with flecks of his energy.  Rays of emerald and gold, almost white in their radiance and power, shined through his costume.  With eyes shut, Sean basked in the power moving through him.  Then with a nudge, his costume transformed into emerald energy and rushed down his arms into Tommy, vanishing and revealing only two men.  White, cobalt, and golden light haloed the bodies.  Scabs covered Tommy’s wounds.  Flaps of rejuvenated skin reached across the breaches, shrinking their girth.

 _Broken thou art in form,_ Sean continued, _but your body can heal.  Rest, my friend,_ he added, relaxing the surplus of energy he was transferring but maintaining the bridge.  _Rest and receive.  Receive and use._   As when his own powers had been in flux he strove for ease, balance, and health within Tommy.

Several pairs of boots scuffed and crunched against the rocks, nearing them.  Maintaining the aura around them, Sean lifted and inclined his head toward the other Rangers and Trent.

Their limps, aches, and worries brushed against and through Sean.  Kimberly tried to cover her gasp.  Billy’s eyes drooped.  Adam and Richie winced at the carnage.  Zack glanced away.  Here lay their leader and friend.  Still they remained, hoping and praying, their souls shining invisibly bright amidst the tragedy.

Sean smiled.  They did not need to know all of Sean’s skills to help.  They knew how to love and support themselves and others.  The knowledge and the application of those skills could serve Tommy and Sean more so than triage and surgery.  “Come Rangers,” he beckoned.  “Form a circle about us and join hands.”

“I’m not a Ranger,” Trent protested.

“Your prayers will suffice.  Please.”

Sean felt the assent.  Slowly, they crept around him and Tommy, joining their hands.  His friends and acquaintances.  Hubs of energy crackled and hummed around Sean.  Inspired, grateful, and empowered by this, he bowed his lips toward Tommy’s ear.

“Listen not to the ease that beckons you, but to your friends’ silent aid and support,” he whispered.  “Awaken and hear them through your rest.  Listen not to independent thought… but instead to the messengers behind them.  Listen lucidly.”

One more he allowed silence to fill the air.  Sitting amidst the circle of love and compassion, he continued.  “Death does not lie.  Love awaits you at both ends.  However… life and destiny can still be yours… therefore, which do you choose?  Ranger of Light, answer me.”

 

* * *

 

Tommy peered between his eyelids.  Light (he couldn’t tell what color it was) colored and framed his vision.  Beyond the color, his friends stood some feet away, holding each other’s hands.  Their hands were glowing—crackling with colored energy.  Different than what covered his eyes.  _My friends,_ he thought.

Zack panted in silent laugher, glancing away from Tommy.

“Keep it together, Zack,” Adam said.  “We aren’t finished.”

“We are here, Tommy,” Sean whispered.

Tommy glanced and then gazed at Sean.  He was whom Tommy had heard.  “Tell me, Tommy, do you want to live?”

Tommy coughed, and then grimaced, moaning and clutching his belly.  Pain shot through his torso.  The abdominal strike flashed in his mind.  He glanced down.  He winced; and then gasped.  He tried saying Jason’s name but grimaced when pronouncing the letter j.

“Shh,” Sean cooed.  “Steady.”

Tommy gasped again, drawing in more air, then gasped out more air, unable to hold it.  His eyes darted around.

“Tommy,” Sean asked gently, “Which do you choose?”

Tommy closed his eyes, wincing at the pain raking and piercing his head and torso.

Finally, Tommy stared into Sean’s eyes, pleading with his eyes.   _Life,_ he thought, concentrating on the word.

Sean opened his right hand beside Tommy’s heart.  “Then take my hand,” he said.  And enact the verb.”

Tommy squinted wincingly at his right hand.  It felt empty, dangling upon the rocks.  He barely felt the ground.  Focusing his will, he lifted his hand, laying it upon Sean’s.  Their fingers closed around each other’s hands.  Rays of pure light, shining as if through a glass-clear crystal, blasted through Tommy’s skin.  Tommy exhaled a deep breath, his ribs pressing into Sean’s.

The light dimmed into nonexistence.  Blinking, Tommy opened his eyes.  The last bits of pink and magenta painted the horizon.  Tommy bent his head, ignoring the onlookers.  He surveyed his body.  His wounds had vanished, their scars lost in the sea of healthy, regrown skin.

A sigh sounded from behind him.

Twisting around, Tommy gapped at Sean.

“Welcome back,” said the other.  Shuffling backward, he sat cross-legged.  His shoulders and head hunched over but his arms stood in the stones, their roots buried in the sand.

Supporting himself with his own arms, Tommy gaped at Sean.

“Later, my friend,” Sean said, holding his back erect by will alone.  He breathed in.  “Later,” he exhaled.


	3. Regroupings

Secluded in his chamber, Jason touched the side of his jaw.  A scab had formed over the cut.

“Blood,” he remarked.  _I was careless._   He approached his mirror.  He examined the cut—no worse than a paper cut.  He would monitor it, try not to pick at it.  Still, he was curious to see blood once again drip from his skin.  It had been so long since that had happened.

He had no reason to hide Sean’s success from his subordinates.  A weaker leader would use it as an excuse for revenge.  He did not need to use such tactics.  Sean had healed Tommy, showing more of his reservoir of talents as he had hoped.

 _And yet you let me live,_ Jason remarked, reflecting on the distant past.

Trini had also shown that she still possessed some of her powers.  She shouldn’t—especially after giving her Power Coin to Richie.  Jason, she, and Sean had discussed this topic all those years ago, when they had hid from and fought against Dark Specter’s hunters; back when they had fought to keep Jason Good.  He smirked at his naiveté from then.  Many, including his former students, would disagree with his choice to give into his nature.  However they would not be able to understand; nor would the team he fought against understand why he had chosen to not only yield but accept and assimilate what he had been born with as opposed to committing _seppuku_.  Sean had offered it.  Jason had contemplated it.  Trini had cautioned against it.  Dark Spector had tempted him.

Yes, it had been a temptation.  For a time, Jason had yielded to Dark Spector’s reasoning but soon he had forged his own decisions, empowering them with validity and confidence.  Even before Darkonda had murdered Dark Spector, Jason had been shifting toward evil ambitions, killing for the glory and wrath of his better; but never losing sight that the universe being conquered could be for him, and not for Astronema.  Once Earth was conquered, Jason would reveal himself to her and the two would either marry or he would destroy her.  Evil was simple in those ways. Had he ascended the empire then he would have hunted Sean and rid the multiverse of his existence.  He even engaged the fancy of Sean enjoying the afterlife with Zordon.  Regardless, that was a fancy and implausible.

He dismissed the memories.  Now he stood as the Grand Monarch of Evil instead of laying in the ground.  He had triumphed in seizing his life from antagonistic traditions and ethics.  He folded his arms across his chest.  In hindsight, he would have preferred building his empire from scratch, shaping it into his own instead of resurrecting Dark Spector’s and conquering it.  Even though he could have done it he preferred the decisions he had made.  Now, even though his front to Earth were reconstituted/resurrected villains from the past and he had needed to conquer them so to speak—his empire included more than those that Zordon had disintegrated.

In choosing to be Evil, he had learned a lot about himself and others.  He would have to decide again if that knowledge was worth sharing to his former friends or if he should kill them.

And also there was Rocky.  “What to do with you?” he mused aloud.

 

* * *

 

Hidden within the thicket, Rocky stared upward into the only lit window.  Trini stood at the window, a mug clutched in her hands.

_She’s there.  Alone._

Rocky breathed in and sighed, never taking his eyes off of her.  Squirrels and birds bounced and flapped about the yard.  He ignored them, determined to stay.  She stood there, mere yards away; the woman he had betrayed Adam for.  He blinked away a tear.  Rocky had betrayed his entire team, his friends, his staff, and his students.  Would his students—would anyone—see the honor in his actions.  “Why did I do this?” he whispered.  Crouched amidst the trees and bushes, thicket, he realized it was a genuine question.  This scared him.

The last time he had been on Earth, he had known why Jason was after Trini.  Now, he could not remember.  Also, he still did not know how long he had been in that cave.

Minutes passed.  Neither person moved.

 _Does she know I’m here?_ he wondered.

 

* * *

 

“Such interesting thoughts these earthlings have,” Lord Zedd commented.  Spying on Rocky from his throne, he caressed the polished stone of his armrests.  “Speculating and doubting simultaneously; defeating an actual answer.”

“Yes, Lord Zedd,” Goldar remarked.  “Does our candidate worry you?”

“Not ironically but he does, Goldar.  And as before, he have little time.” 

“Rocky is newly evil.  This is new to him!”

“And accepting a former Power Ranger as our leader was also new, you buffoonic inversion!”

Grimacing, Goldar tilted his head away from Lord Zedd. 

“Such thoughts and worries have no place in his position.”  Discharges eroded into and across his staff.  “It is time for me to step in.  Rocky of Earth, I summon you.”  Swinging his staff, Lord Zedd released is energy at Rocky.

 

* * *

 

Lightning bolts cut through the air, bouncing about the thicket.  Trini gasped.  And then the lighting hit the center, pulsating with roll after roll, and swung up like a bungee cord.

Trini remained at the window, staring at the thicket.  Rocky had been there.  She had sensed him.  Still, he neither of them had chosen to interact with the other.  Surely he could have teleported into the house.  Nothing in the house could have bared him.

_If he entered, what would—_

Rocky was still an empowered Ranger.  She had her empathy but could that hold off a Power Ranger?

Energy crackled off her right.  “Trini?” Richie asked.

“I’m alright,” she said, still looking out the window.

“Good to hear.”  Richie approached her.

“Rocky was here.”

“Where?” Richie simply asked.

She felt his anxiety spike.  Trini wiped a tear from her eye.  “The thicket outside.”

Sighing, he went to the window.  “I’m sorry you were alone.”

“I came alone.  So was he.”

Richie did not say anything.  Perhaps he was stunned by her words.  She glanced toward him but did not turn her head.

“I’m asking,” he began, his voice obstructed, “for you to come back.”

Trini’s eyelids popped open.  _Don’t ask me!_ she protested, ignoring that he hadn’t finished.

“Come stay with us.  You’re safer in the Lair.”

“It’s a cave, Richie.  I’d rather see sunlight.”

“How can you with your bangs in the way?”

She swept some out of her way, blinking her eyes.

“That’s only a quick fix,” he said.  “Temporary.”  He approached her.

She braced herself.  Her reaction surprised her.  She breathed in deeply.  “How is Tommy?”

“Alive.”

“Good.”

“Are you?”

She shuffled around, curling her hands before her chest.  She looked into his brown eyes. _Jason’s eyes were that color._   “What do you mean?”

“Jason raped you.  Rocky just stalked you.”

The words battered and stabbed her.  She winced but kept staring at him. 

“Are you alive?” Richie asked her.

 

* * *

 

“Well, Red Ranger,” Lord Zedd began, standing atop his dais.

Rocky kneeled at the foot it, his arms bound in iron shackles clapped to a belt.  Surrounded and obscured with fog save his eyes and hair, Rocky glared at Lord Zedd.

“We seem to have a problem with you, don’t we?” Zedd continued.

“How do you mean?” asked the prisoner crusted in dirt.

“Insolent—” Goldar began.

Rocky glared at Goldar through the fog.  “Careful, monkey boy!” he said.  “Unless Jason has given you the go-ahead to off me.”

“You dare to use the Monarch’s protection—!”

“Unless it’s rescinded, yes!” Rocky shot back.

Goldar growled.

“So,” Lord Zedd purred.  “You defend your life on a gamble?”

“Don’t wanna upset the big guy, right?”  Rocky tossed a chuckle.  “Let’s face it; he is.”

Still, Lord Zedd leered at Rocky, looming over the man.

“You wait instead for the mercy of one who is beyond you!”

“Just because you were his love pet,” Goldar began.  Rocky twitched.  “…doesn’t mean anything, fool.”

Rocky glared at Lord Zedd.  “In all the years against us, this is the best you’ve ever captured a ranger?”  Filling his lungs, he straightened as much as he could, power rippling beneath his skin.  “I could morph right now and break these chains.”

Zedd leaned over Rocky.  “Are you ready to battle the likes of me?” he challenged and mocked.

“I am.”

“Thrashing you would be a pleasure!” Goldar said.

“The challenge wasn’t directed at you.”

The three of them turned and gaped at the hallway leading to Finster’s workshop.  Jason stood there, garbed in his black robes, his hood resting at his shoulders.  Lord Zedd and Goldar bowed to him.

“Send him back to the cave,” Jason commanded.

Rocky bowed his head, shutting his eyes.  

Lord Zedd sprayed the Ranger with lighting.

 

* * *

 

Billy breathed in the calm, cool, and unchanging air of the cave below Tommy’s house, relieved to be safe within the Lair’s protective field.  Only those tied to the Morphing Grid through the current team’s ranger powers could teleport into this cave.  Thankfully, part of that protection sealed Tommy’s house also.

“Haley,” he asked.  “Do you have the stretcher?”

“Just a medical cot and some diagnostic equipment,” she answered, lining up the cot alongside one of the walls.  “You know, these are the only things that survived Zeltrax’s attack,” she added.

“How kind of him.”

“Oh, I’m sure he would have disintegrated these if he’d seen them.  I had them packed up upstairs.”

“Smart.”

He, Haley, and Sean had rebuilt this place, furbishing it with more advanced equipment.  However, this was not the Command Center or the Power Chamber.  Without true Eltarian technology, the Rangers were tied to human impersonations, no matter how much Haley, Billy, and Sean had modified and upgraded it, which left them blind in many areas.  They could not scan the galaxy for instance.

Regardless, while Jason and Rocky, both being Ninjetti and that Rocky still had his power coin, could enter this place.  Jason was a tricky contingent.  While he was a Ninjetti, he did not have a power coin.  However, he possibly could either bypass or disintegrate the rangers’ defenses—possibly both.

Still, he hadn’t.  _Why?_ Billy wondered.  Billy and Sean had anticipated this tactic.  Still, with all the attempts in the past fifteen years of Evil breaking into Power Ranger bases gave precedence for Jason to repeat said tactics.  As of yet, he had not, save casting a spell on Tommy and interfering with Haley’s surveillance equipment.  No.  Destroying their base would be demoralizing, but impeding the rangers from ever operating at one hundred percent when it was within their ability to do so, was far worse.  The rangers were forced to always compensate, to adapt, and while that had served them in motivation, over time, the stress and frustration would drain their reserves and minds.  It was a dangerous game Jason was playing.  His strategies would possibly no doubt exhaust his subjects.  Still, they maintained their loyalty to him.  Jason wanted to break the rangers before he conquered Earth.

Dark Specter and Astronema had failed to accomplish that before they began to invade the universe.  However, despite their unwise timing, Astronema had crippled the Space Rangers by destroying two of their megazords before initiating their grand invasion.  Thusly, those rangers were less equipped to halt the invasion.  Now, the rangers had two sets of zords, plus Sean’s and Zack’s.  Still, the question remained if all of their zords could combine.  He was still pondering that.

Billy lifted his communicator to his mouth.  “Guys, everything’s ready here.”

 _“Stand by,”_ Adam replied. 

Sean, Tommy, Adam, Kimberly, and Trent materialized beside the cot.

“Here,” Sean offered, holding Tommy up.  “Rest for now.”

Pale and worn, Tommy sat hunched upon the cot.  “No arguing here,” he sighed.

“Surprised you stood up!” Zack said, jabbing Tommy’s shoulder.

“Now, I don’t need to,” Tommy breathed.

“I’ll grab some food,” Kimberly said.

“Yeah, I’m coming too,” Zack added, following her.

Sean, however, studied Tommy.  “How do you feel?” he asked.

“Tired but alive,” Tommy answered.  “Trent… thanks for staying around.”

“Of course,” said the young man.

They shook hands.  Turning, Tommy peered at Sean.  “You saved me, Sean,” he said.

“Indeed.  Remember that you listened and participated also.”  Turning, Sean stepped away.

“Wait.”

Sean turned back, gazing brightly at the man before him. 

Tommy’s hand reached out.  “Thank you,” Tommy said.

Sean nodded.  Then he ambled away.

Billy smiled.  A friendship between those two would serve all of them but it would take time.  Especially since it began with a lie.  However, this was a good step toward that.  Plus, Billy was not going to waste more time agonizing about his years-long silence.  

Turning, he tapped Adam.  “Adam,” he whispered.  “Could we talk for a moment?”

Adam looked up.  “Sure.”

Motioning to the side, Billy led Adam into one of the alcoves.

“What’s up?” Adam asked, his hands casually resting on his hips.

Clear that he was out of earshot, Billy locked eyes with Adam.  “Are you gonna be okay when Rocky attacks us?”

Adam breathed in but clearly stiffened. 

“Adam?” Billy said.  “Do you want me to take him on when he attacks?”

“I hadn’t thought of that.  I’m still in shock—trying to ride it out.”

“I understand.  Can I help?”

Adam looked past Billy.  “Sean,” he spoke up and then stopped.

Sean stood alone by the staircase leading up to Tommy’s house, chanting hurried words under his breath.

“Sean?” Adam repeated.

Billy peered at his friend.  “Sensei?” he prodded.  The two of them stepped toward him.

Zack and Kimberly clattered down the suspended Y shaped staircase.  Adam and Billy held their silence.  Glancing at Sean, they paused.

Sean chanted onward.  Billy listened, searching for syntax clues.  He recognized the language—Sean had spoken many during their training—but this particular one escaped him.  Nevertheless, he knew he had heard this one before.

Sean stopped chanting.  He faced his friends.  The others peered at him, waiting.  “I’m sorry, my friends,” he said, drawing his hands in prayer in front of his chest.  “I need time.  I will return and explain.  For now, I encourage you to rest and replenish yourselves.”  Then he teleported through the ceiling.

“Haley, can you track him?” Zack asked, looking at her.  Sitting beside her, Trent looked over at her.

“Yes,” she said, closing her hands into in her lap.  “But I’m not going to.”  She looked at all of them.  “When he’s ready to come back, he will.  Is that right, Billy?”

“Affirmative.”  Billy looked back where Sean had stood.

“Have you seen him like this before?”

“I don’t think so.”  Billy breathed in and out, hoping he was wrong.

Trent withdrew his cellphone.  He paused.  Then he looked up.  “Haley?  The others?”

“On their way.”

“Keep an eye on them, please.”

“Already am.”

 

* * *

 

Sean materialized amidst the trees, the grass, and the dirt.  Pivoting and pressing a hand to his heart, he squeezed his eyes shut.  Slumping forward, he pushed and pushed into the rich, semidry, and grass patched ground, forcing him to stay upright.  He grimaced, squeezing his face.  His mouth hanged up.  He arched backward, holding the pose for a second.  Then his legs gave out.  Crashing onto his stomach, he struck the ground with the base of his fist.  Breathing in, he shuddered, fearing someone would attack him.

Then he ignored his fear.  Soon he did not care.  He had held these emotions within for too long.  Calling Tommy back from the edge of death had sapped his reserves—not on what he drew on to live or fight, but what he used to keep his being—and all parts of it—balanced.  His body shivered throughout.  He welcomed them.  Sobs rumbled from his throat.  His jaw hung open.  And tears filled the middle of his face.  Touching the ground with his forehead he dampened the ground further.  There he stayed until the fit passed.  Nothing else mattered then, so he did he push to thing of anything else.  He simply opened his heart and moved out of its way.

Sparse sunbeams sprayed him through the canopy.

The air chilled.  A shadow interrupted the light.

“Sensei,” said Jason.

Sean rose, sitting on his knees and keeping his back to Jason.  “You fought well today,” he said.

“As did you.  Three marks.”

“Did I pass your test?”

Silence gripped the air.  Allowing his tears, Sean waited.  Jason was watching him.  This was not a battle or ambush.  For Jason to kill Sean in that fashion would have been dishonorable.

 _Dishonorable?_ Sean mused.  _Really?_

 _“You did what?”_  His accusations to Zordon those years ago stabbed through his mind, unsheathed and sharpened.  Those judgments had placed too many at risk.

Jason would feel better if he meant it.  Instead Jason felt peaceful.  However, Sean could not sense his thoughts—only his mood—and he did not need to.  Sean nodded.  “I understand.  Congratulations.”  He looked away.  “Now leave me in peace.”

“I’ll grant you that.”  Jason disappeared.

Alone amidst the trees of his property, Sean allowed his tears to flow again.

 

* * *

 

Orion wandered down the dim hallway, consumed with mental rants.  A shape caught his eye.  He paused.

Yards before him, Finster secreted an elixir upon Scorpio’s wound.  Tensing its leg, Scorpio hissed, snapping its pincers.

“Yes.  Yes. Yes, I understand but we cannot do everything with sorcery,” the pail alien remarked while inspecting the wound.  “This treatment stings for now but works wonderfully!”  Refilling his dropper, he hobbled to the middle leg.  “Now, please hold still.”

Scorpio sighed at the pain.

“Good.  Good.”

“How long, clay-molder?” Orion asked from behind.

Finster stepped to the rear leg.  “This is only my second coat.  I have sterilize prior to applying each layer and I will need at least two more layers.”  He damped the leg’s wound.

“Continue,” Orion snarled.

“I am glad to hear you approve.  Seeing as I don’t answer to you, your threats are useless.”

“Careful, clay-molder—”

“ _I_ am a monster maker!  You may address me as such,” Finster retorted.

Orion stormed away, snarling under his breath.

“I still need to attend to your burns,” Finster called out.

Halting, Orion squeezed his fingers.  “Sean!” he growled.

“You want him dead?” asked a metallic, growling voice.

Orion looked around.  “Yes, Lord Zedd,” he hissed.

“Then we have much in common.  Rest and heal your wounds.  The time will come soon.”

“He is weak now!”

“Reckless brat!”  Surging up his staff, lightning sprayed Orion’s legs.  The Greek warrior fell to the ground.  Sneering, he jerked his head but only his eyes moved.  “I trust you can attend to him in this state, Finster!”

“Easily, sire!”

“Good.”  Pivoting, Zedd marched up the hallway.

Orion watched the alien leave, screaming mutely within the shell of his body.

 

* * *

 

Opening his eyes, Sean rolled over, facing upward.  Faint stars glittered in the dark above.  Sean smiled at them.  Salt trailed down his cheeks.  His arms rested beside him on the smooth grass.  Casting his awareness about him, he sensed no one else with him.  Not even an astral echo of Jason remained.  _You continue to impress me, young one,_ Sean confessed.  This thought eased him.

Enveloped in bliss, he slowly slid his eyes shut, welcoming the pure rest it beckoned.  He had nothing to fear for the night.  The day was complete for him.


	4. A Second Team

Opening the door, nineteen year old Ethan James walked into Tommy’s foyer. “Kinda feels weird coming back here,” the African American mentioned.

“Don’t you think we should have knocked?” Kira asked, following behind him and gesturing at the door.

“It’s not like we weren’t expected,” Ethan said, shrugging.  “Or didn’t come here all of last year.”

“You guys finished?” Connor asked, his soft voice carrying over their rants.  Coaching had differently

Kira and Ethan glanced and then gaped at Connor.  Then she gave up.

Ethan glanced at her.  “Sorry,” Ethan said, gesturing at Connor.  Looking back at Connor, Kira nodded.

“So are you guys Tommy’s recruits?” asked a man behind the stairs.

The trio turned toward the voice.  “Zack Walters,” the man introduced.  Stepping in from the living room, he held out his hand.

“Original Black Ranger!” Ethan exclaimed, shaking Zack’s hand vigorously and beaming.  “Ethan James.”

“Great to meet you.” Zack said.

“Oh, these are Connor and Kira,” Ethan introduced, gesturing to them respectfully.

Zack shook their hands.  “Pleasure.  Tommy’s mentioned a lot of good things about you.”

“Good things I hope?” Connor asked, trying to sound cheerer.

Zack laughed, flashing a true smile.

 _I’m glad you can,_ Ethan thought.

“Great things,” Zack responded.  Grasping Connor’s shoulder, he squeezed it affectionately.

“How is he?” Kira demanded.

“Kira!” Trent called from the top of the stairs.  He hurried down them, greeting his friends.  “He’s actually awake right now.”

“Lead the way,” said Conner.

“The rest of us are eating if you want to join us,” Zack invited, pointing his thumb toward the kitchen.

“We’ll take you up on that later,” Kira said, passing Zack and climbing up a few steps.  Stopping, she turned around.  “Gosh, sorry.  Zack, right?”

Zack nodded and then shrugged at her.  “I get it.  Go.  We’ll keep some food for you.”

“Thanks,” she said.

Then she, Ethan, Connor and Trent scampered up the steps.

 

* * *

 

Demorphing, Tommy fell upon the rocks.

Shaking his head, Connor McKnight nailed his eyes to the monitor’s screen, grinding his teeth.  Even if Trent, Haley, or Dr. O had called him, there was no way he could have driven to the quarry in time from Reefside.  “So that’s Jason Lee Scott,” he expressed.  He eyed the man.

“Seems like it,” Kira commented from his side, nodding.

Ethan stood silently beside his best friends.

“Hard to imagine he was once a predecessor of yours, huh Conner?” Haley chimed in from her chair.  Sitting in the adjacent chair, Trent raised his eyebrows at his friend.

“You could say that,” Connor said, thinking the same thing.

Dr. O’s adult team and friends lounged upstairs, possibly sleeping for a handful of hours.  Above all of them, the night passively trekked toward Wednesday’s dawn, a continuous reminder of how time persisted regardless of the events it nursed and bred.

Dr. O of all of them needed the rest.  He had smiled so brightly upon seeing his teammates, a team he had brought together under his mentorship.  _He’s too young to be a grandpa,_ Connor remarked.

The playback continued into Sean and Jason’s battle.

“So what’s the story about those two?” Ethan asked.

“We aren’t sure,” Haley admitted.  “Various suppositions mixed with the little we do know leads only to speculation without proof.”

“Even when you incorporate logic into them?” Ethan asked.

“Wait, I thought you knew everything about people?” Connor threw in.

Haley tapped a key and the video paused.  “There isn’t much to find about Sean,” Haley said.  “Personally, I think that name is an alias.  Why do you guys think that we have never heard of him before?”

That idea did not sit well with them.

“Well, we know there are humans from space, remember?  Andros, for example.”

“Andros is living on Earth nowadays with Ashley.  However, Sean,” she keyed in a command and a map of the continental United States appeared.  Two red dots blinked on opposite sides of it.  “Has residences outside of Angel Grove’s suburbs and in the Appalachian Mountains of Virgina.”

“Are you saying he’s mischievous because he has two homes?” Kira asked.

“I’m saying we don’t know enough,” Haley answered.

Connor shook his head.  “Haley,” he said, looking into her eyes.  “I want you to show us every battle and exchange between Jason’s forces and Dr. O’s team,” he instructed.

“Including when Tommy was evil?” she asked with an edge in her voice.

“Everything you have.”

She typed away.  “I don’t have anything from their first battle.  However,” she pulled up a playlist on the second monitor.  “This includes all of our footage.”  Turning in her seat she rose and stepped away from the station.  “All yours.”

“Wait; you’re leaving?” Ethan asked.

Pausing on a step, Haley looked Ethan in the eye.  “Yes.  I have been here since before dawn so I am in need of at least a little shut-eye, you know?  Plus, I watched all of the footage earlier today.  Knock yourselves out.  You know these systems.  Just don’t break anything.”  She glared at Connor and Ethan.

“Scout’s honor,” Connor said, raising his right hand.

“Ditto,” Ethan chimed in.

“Alright.  Sorry guys.  I am just—”

“We understand, Haley,” Trent interrupted.  “Go and sleep.”

She paused.  Then she nodded.  “See all of you in the morning?”

“If there’s room,” Kira said.

Smirking, Haley paraded to the Lair’s entrance.  “Oh, trust me; there are plenty of places to sleep here,” she announced.  “Couches, beds, and lots of sleeping bags and pillows.”

“I brought mine,” Ethan mentioned, looking at Kira.

“Me too,” Connor added, raising a hand.

Kira gaped at both of them.  “Okay, I admit it.  I forgot.”

“It’s okay, Kira,” Ethan said.

“Get some sleep afterward,” Haley advised.

“Good night, Haley,” Trent said.

Waving good night in kind, she climbed the steps.  The young adults gathered around the monitors.  Connor slide into the chair and breathed out, trying to unclench his torso and limbs.  Tommy’s collapse replayed in his mind.  “Okay, here we go.”


	5. Paths Not Taken

Rocky lay upon the clay dais.  Cold iron shackled his wrists.  Blood, no longer leaking from them, lay crusted, cracked, and sticky down his palms, fingers, and forearms, mixed as blood.  He cradled his wrists near his middle, trying to ignore their burning and itching; trying not to move them.

Darkness surrounded him.  The air was still.  He laid there with his check against the clay.  Trying to ease his eyes, he kept them shut against the dark.  However his irises, feeling and knowing the light's absence, tugged and stretched regardless.  He grimaced.  Then he loosened his face.  _I'm not gonna turn into a nocturnal, cave dwelling mutant,_ he told himself again.  But there was nothing to distract himself, nothing he could focus on to stall this process.  The torch remained inactive.

There indeed was nothing to see here.  Only to touch, smell, and taste.  And all were bitter.  Still his eyes begged to behold that which he inhabited and there was nothing to sate them.  Nothing on the outside, he realized—as all prisoners soon realized.  He therefore meditated in curled fake sleep, forcing himself to dream.

He returned eight—ten—years ago.  _Angel Grove High.  Shadows and dimmed light shaded and framed the images.  Jason Lee Scott strolled, briefly strutting, beside and with Zack Taylor through the busy hallway.  Partially buffered by his opened top locker, Rocky waved.  The pair smiled at him and waved back, following a herd into a classroom.  Grasping his locker's door, Rocky faced inside it._  Those two are Power Rangers, _he thought.  Smirking, he shook his head._   And I know them.  _His thoughts returned to Jason._   Seriously, who has arms that big? _Then he remembered Jason was on the football team._   I need to see if I can get a workout with him later.

Rocky tore himself from the memory.  Had he really had an interest in Jason since his first day at Angel Grove High?  He doubted it.  Maybe Jason was messing with his mind, convincing Rocky that he belonged with him instead of with Adam and their friends.  Their studio.

Still the question rang within him: when had his attraction to Jason truly begin?

 

* * *

 

Adam sat alone in his office. A gray pebble hovered inches above Adam's palm.  He stared at it.  The pebble rotated and tilted, reflecting the halogen lights of its surface.

A knock sounded beyond the office.

Relaxing the pebble onto his palm, Adam closed his eyes and breathed in meditatively, clearing away any frustration spawned from the intrusion.  “Come in,” he requested, glad that his voice was soft instead of harsh.

Kathy entered. 

Adam stared at her.  “Can I help you?” he asked.

"Practicing with your pebble again?" she asked.

“Guilty. It…”  He could not think of what to say—what he could say.

“Avoidance only lasts for so long,” Kathy chimed in.

Adam smiled at her.  “Thank you for that.  Do you have a question for me?”

“I was wondering if you had heard anything more about Rocky. You haven't mentioned him since you said he was absent.”

It was Thursday after all.  Professionalism dictated that he carry on the business along with its programs.  Adam regarded her and her question, wondering what would be an accurate answer.  He did not want to lie to her.  “I haven't.”

“Is he missing?”

“No.  Just secluded.”

“So if he isn't missing, what are you nervous about? Business is excellent so you can't be anxious about that.”

Adam smiled at her.  “True.”

“That's only half an answer.  Ignoring a situation does not solve it," she restated from several lectures she and her colleagues had given their students.

Adam gave her a look.  “If I were mean, I could fire you for being impertinent.”

“I'll risk it.”  Silently, they shared in the joke.

Adam gazed at the paperwork piled neatly on his desk.  “You have always been a wise woman. I'm glad.”  _I'm glad you inspire are students the same way,_ he reflected. Adam allowed himself to breathe fully, freer now than during the several minutes of meditation. "So what else brings you to my office aside from cheering me up?" he asked.

“Well, now that you ask, I was wondering if you had given anymore thought about Jeremy's assistant instructor training.”

“Hmm. Thanks for that. I'd forgotten. Do you think he wants to be a full time instructor?”

“I have no doubt of that.”

“Then I'd like it if you would mentor him.”

“I'd be happy to.  If I may,” she added. “I think you would be a better one for him.”

“You may be right.”  It'd be good to do something good for Jason's family, however remotely.  _Instead of waiting for him to kill us; or we kill him._   “I'll give you my answer by closing today.”

“Alright.”  She moved to the door.  Pausing, she faced Adam.  “You may want to change before our first class.”

Adam looked at his attire, realizing that he had not registered how he had arrived.  He was dressed in a black suite.  _No wonder they're curious._   He did not wear all black often nowadays.  Great as he looked in them, he felt they were too dark on him, even with his black hair.  Now, he wondered if he should be preparing a eulogy or a speech for a new instructor.  Are the two mutually exclusive?  “I suppose you're right,” he said, deciding to remain indecisive on the issue.  Smiling, Kathy left, closing the door behind her.  Adam grabbed an extra _gi_ from the cupboard.

 

* * *

 

Rocky curled in tighter.  Eyes still shut, he shivered, wishing his burn would spread.  _At least he'd be warmer,_ he thought.  _Or felt warmer._

Memories of him watching Jason from a distance swirled in his mind.  School.  The Park.  The Youth Center.  Even the occasional house visit.

He shrugged against them.  What did the past mean now?  He had pledged his allegiance to Jason (offered his sub-crystal to him) to buy Trini's freedom and safety.  He had been a fool with that plan.  She was already his prisoner.  Jason had incarcerated her when he had sealed her memories.  His releasing of her memories had neither released her nor saved her soul. Rocky had failed in helping her that way.  As long as she stayed a victim, she was Jason's.  And Rocky served no one while here, his talents and time wasted.  Despite the time and inconsistent patience he had invested, he had done nothing but cause misery for his friends.  Plus the longer the two sides stayed at an impasse, the longer both sides had to heal, to get stronger.

Rocky shook his head.  Jason was the one of the most powerful beings in the universe.  He should not be waiting.  He should be attacking the Ninjetti Rangers, trying to kill them.  _If only I could teleport out of here,_ he thought.


	6. Birds

_“Orion,” spoke a male voice, “I burn your body and your foe’s to speed you both on your way.  May you find the peace among the stars and in heaven that you could not find while on Earth.  Rest in healing, my friend.  And may remembrances honor you throughout the coming centuries.  Thank you for what you gave me.”_

_Flames sparked before him, blooming into an inferno.  A male figure blurred into focus before it, highlighted by flame but clothed in shadow._

_Smoke entered Tommy’s nose.  Fire slid across him, ripping his flesh!  His belly split open.  He cried out._

He sprang onto his palms, darting his eyes around him.  Stray sunlight stung his eyes.  He clamped his eyelids together, staggering into his headboard, grimacing, and panting.  Tears and darkness softened his eyes’ ache.

He padded his arms, torso, and legs.  No burns.  He sniffed about him.  He listened.  No fire.  No smoke.  No fire.  Just skin underneath a sheet and blanket.

Blinking, he scanned his room, letting a few drops fall from them.  Only his bedroom furniture greeted him.  If someone had been in the room, they had left.  Besides, if Jason’s forces had visited him, his communicator would have gone off.  It had not.  Annoyed and depleted, he rubbed his temples with one hand, cradling his brow.

Relaxing his ribs and spine, he deflated again onto his pillow.  Rolling over he tugged his covers over his head.  Minutes passed.  Sleep remained distant.  He grunted.  Since when do I dream about fires?  Jason’s flames had actually saved Tommy during their fight, not kill him.  Why would he be scared of them?  He blinked and frowned, peering into his eyelids.  “Or pyres?” he whispered in wonderment for that was what he had dreamed, vague though his recollection was.  He shook his head.  That voice had returned again in his sleep, speaking of Orion.  Again? he wondered.  Tommy had heard it before.  He knew he had heard that speech before!  But he could not recall from where or when or whom it belonged it.  Nor could he recall remembering this before now.  He opened his eyes.  “How?” he wondered.  Frowning, he peered into the air.  This didn’t make any sense!  The speech’s words slipped from of his memory, leaving only blurry shadows.  Tommy tried to recall some of the words but failed.  “Weird,” he murmured.

His abs pressed into the void behind them.  Soreness spread through and from them but not pain.  He smirked.  He was alive.  Heavy… weary… hungry even… but alive.  He smiled at the improvement.  When Connor, Ethan, and Kira had visited him, Tommy had barely talked, gazed at them from half closed eyes, and gestured with his fingers and hands.  He smiled that he had moved so much a little bit ago and did not feel sleepy.  However he felt it would be a while before he practice hardcore in the dojo

Rolling his feet over the bed’s edge, he sat up, straightening his back.  Immediately, his heartbeat quickened.  A tornado spun in his brain, dragging his vision.  Shadows dropped across his vision.  Hunching and swaying, he gripped the mattress.  “Whoa,” he whispered, grabbing the side of his head, his hair soft without his hardening gel.  Planting his feet on the floor, he focused on his breathing, on not succumbing.

Once more steady, he glanced at the clock. 10:27AM. He offered a sympathetic smile.  “Elsa would kill me if I hadn’t almost died,” he sighed, crushed that he was missing work.  Nevertheless, he was sure that at least Trent and Haley had filled her in.  _Haley,_ he thought.  She had been watching the battle from its beginning, had contacted him before it had started.  She had been there with him.  So had Trent.  And then his new team had been there.  Including Sean.  All of them.  Tommy thanked them for that deed.

Yes, his job was secure.  He just wished he did not have to put her and his students in less stable hands by missing school.  He had been hoping to avoid that this year with Mesogog being destroyed.  “So much for that,” he muttered.  The quiet life always seemed to elude him.  Maybe when he was seventy…

A knock sounded at the door.  Tommy started.  “Who’s there?” he called out.

“Sean,” said the knocker.  “May I enter?”

Tommy sighed, hesitating.  Then he smiled.  It wasn’t like he knew he could stand or walk.  Athlete though he was, there was a difference between pushing through a bout and recovering from—.  He tensed, pain stabbing through his abdomen.  It vanished then, its echoes lingering however.  Jason slashing his abdomen rushed through his mind, the look of firm and malevolent discipline in his friend. “Come on in,” he said, forcing his voice to be calm.  Softening his posture, he knew it was useless to fake in front of Sean.  The man was a telepath after all.  A strong one at that.

The door opened.  Sean walked just inside of the doorframe, carrying a tray with two thermos and two mugs on it.  “Good morning.”

“Hey,” Tommy managed, pushing himself into a better upright sitting posture.

“It’s good to see you sitting up.  Coffee?  Tea?  Toast?”

Tommy rubbed an eye, gazing at the choices.  “Coffee for now,” he said.  He was thirsty but he hoped the caffeine would help him focus.

Setting the tray onto the bed, Sean poured some coffee into a mug and then held it out.

Taking it, Tommy sipped the steaming beverage, greeting the aroma and taste.  He had missed it.  Blowing on it, he sipped some more.  “Have there been any attacks since Jason?” he asked neutrally.

“No, there have not been.”

Tommy drank a swig.  “Good,” he grunted, relieved at the news.  It would have sucked if he had woken up and the world had been conquered.  However, he took the fact that he had woken up in his bedroom comforting.  “What kind of tea did you bring?” he asked, now a little more alert.

“The blend I gave you earlier in the week.”

“I’ll take some after I’m done with this.”

Filling his mug halfway with tea, Sean inclined his head.

Tommy sipped again.  Burning his tongue he sputtered, seizing the mug with both hands, steading it.  He stiffened, wincing.  The flames—the blood—rushed through his mind, stabbing him and matting the side of his head.  Swords clanged together in his ears.  He winced again.  A hand tightened into a fist near his stomach.  The pain returned in his abdomen.  _No,_ he counseled, refusing to submit in front of Sean.

“Allow them,” Sean counseled.  “Breathe through the feelings, the images.”

Gritting his teeth, Tommy shook his head.

“Allow.  Review.  Understand.  And accept.”

“Commanding, Sean?” Tommy asked, sneering.  “Really?”

“No.  Advising.  Advice I followed within an hour of saving you.”

Tommy peered at the man, his ears registering something.  However his mind remained uncertain as to what it was.  He kept his eyes on Sean, intend to keep hearing the man.

“Saving you as I did taxed me,” Sean elaborated.  “Is there something else I can help with you?” he asked nonchalantly and with more than polite curiosity.  “I doubt that this is advice you have not heard before as a mentor and as a student.”

“Right,” Tommy mentioned.  Setting his mug down, he laced his fingers together, bracing his chin.   “Something I’m thinking about,” he said neutrally, masking his voice.

Sean nodded, his posture and expression both calm and patient.

Tommy felt relieved, but only partially.  Conversing with Sean was strange.  The man was a telepath and could easily gleam the information from Tommy, probably without Sean wanting to—he did not know how Sean’s mental abilities worked.  Nevertheless, Tommy felt as though he could trust Sean—could trust him more.  The man felt more open to him.  Tommy felt as though he was stumbling in his mind.  He felt uncomfortable—disoriented.  Reaching for the tea thermos, he poured some into his now empty mug.  The tea’s steam wafted against him, almost splashing him; its smell consoling him.  He was reassured.  And then divided.  This was too new.

He scoffed.  _Everything this week’s been too new,_ he commented cynically, sneering simultaneously.  His gaze flicked onto and off Sean.  The other ranger remained nonplused, an embodiment of calmness and patience.  Unnerved—and ashamed—Tommy neutralized his eyes, immediately questioning why.  The man before him had saved Tommy’s life.  He had reached out psychically, calling Tommy back to life and encouraging him to choose life.  Tommy had awoken in Sean’s lap.  Sean had been depleted but had been there.  He had been there.

_That’s it,_ Tommy thought, still peering.  Sean’s was the voice he had dreamed about, yet he had never heard Sean say those things before.  Fragmented though his recollection was, he knew this was so.  Worse though, he did not know what to do with this information.

“Have you looked at your torso?” Sean asked.

Interrupted and flustered, Tommy glanced at his t-shirt.  “Not yet,” he mentioned, avoiding Sean’s eyes.

“Perhaps you should.”

Tommy looked at the mirrorless wall behind Sean.

“You’ve never experienced a wound like that,” Sean commented, almost asking.  “An attack,” he amended gently, as if testing the word out.  Nevertheless he asked with compassion, kindness, and respect, all the while gentle without coddling Tommy.

Thankful to the last, Tommy shuddered.  Sean was right.  Tommy had been knocked unconscious and out of his morph but had never been near death due to battle.  “Have you?” he asked, still governing his voice, but failing.  A waver remained.

“Yes.  Long ago.  Being an enemy of Dark Specter has its consequences.”

Tommy was not sure of what to say to that so he chose silence.

“Search for your center, what grounds you,” Sean offered.  “That can help you.”

Drops of sweat leaked onto Tommy’s face.  “And if I can’t find it?”

“I expect you to look regardless of the outcome,” Sean replied neutrally.  “You have suffered a trauma, a shock.  Allow yourself the vulnerability and courage to feel what you felt and what you feel.”

Tommy waited for Sean to elaborate but the other man did not.  The silence gnawed at Tommy, tempting his anger.  He drank instead, glad that it was tea instead of alcohol.

“I healed your body,” Sean mentioned, leaving unsaid implications for Tommy to decipher.  “And I am here.”  He simply stayed in the room, patient and calm, an ember of a mighty forge.

_Or maybe the forge is still there?_ Tommy proposed.  He wasn’t sure where he was going with this.  He had never given a lot of credit to New Age ideas, staying philosophically with those of the Martial Artists’ ideas.  However there probably were overlaps among the two disciplines.  Confused though he was, Tommy did not nod to Sean’s comment even though he felt he should affirm.  It puzzled that he could not look at him for longer than a couple seconds at a time.  He glanced at Sean again.  This was the person that had beheaded Scorpina without delay.  And he sat here with the calmness of a spring breeze; yet that tranquility unnerved—frightened Tommy.  Jason had sliced Tommy’s middle with as quick efficiency and determination, his eyes haunting Tommy.  However this man before him had helped Tommy.

“You did more than that, Sean,” he intoned.

Sean gave a brief nod.  “I rejoined your spirit to your body in order to heal you, yes.”

Tommy understood now what Sean was asking for.  “I remember… something else…”

“Go on,” Sean invited.

Once more, Tommy tried to recall what he had dreamed.  He only saw a faint outline of the words, heard inarticulate echoes.  He sighed.  “I can’t remember it now.  Something about you and Orion.”

Sean’s face tightened a fraction. 

Sean may have been expecting to discuss something else.  Tommy chose not to be distracted.  Analyzing could wait.

As if thinking the same thing, Sean smiled, relaxing his muscles.  “Is this a memory or a dream?”

“Something I dreamed, I think, but different.  I don’t recall seeing it when I was awake.”

“Understood.  What did the others tell you about Orion and Scorpio?”

“Only that you defeated them by yourself.”  He should not have been surprised by this.  If Sean could defend against Rita, Zedd, Goldar, and Scorpina then two monsters should have been no problem.  Dazed, he chuckled a bit, staring at his lap.  His vision cleared.  “Seems wild that Rita and Zedd would use Greek monsters and heroes against us.”

“Not against us or you.  Me.”

Tommy lifted his eyes at Sean, keeping them on him.

“Seeing and engaging with Orion and Scorpio was meant to unhinge me because Orion was, and is, a friend of mine.”

Tommy blinked.

“I was there when Orion hunted, fought, and then slew Scorpio.  Orion died in that battle too.”

“Afterwards, you burned their bodies,” Tommy supplied, “On pyres,” he added, surprising himself with knowing that but the words felt correct.  Only instinct verified this.  However he could not ignore this.

“I did, cremating their bodies whilst sending them to the stars.”

Tommy nodded at this, finally answering a question he had chased through both grad schools.  And then another question formed in him.  “Sean, this knowledge is not mine, is it?”

“No.  However you should not be unnerved that you no more about me,” Sean continued.  “In order to heal you, I bridged myself with you.  Some of my memories and thoughts are yours now.  Copied as it were.”

“So I’m still me?” Tommy asked.

“Of course.”

“Good,” Tommy sighed, wiping his face.  “So was it timetravel?  Immortality?”

Sean gazed at Tommy, a vastness growing behind his eyes, and an intensity, both gentle and dangerous.  “Tommy, The Phoenix is not just my Sacred Animal.  There is no separation between me and it.  We are truly one, our life-cycles fused.  Thus, I am simply both old and young; neither mortal nor immortal but a human being trapped forever in a cycle of reconstitution and incarnation.”

“So how old are you, then?” Tommy decided to ask.

“Currently, thirty-four years old.  However the number you are truly asking for is six thousand twenty-five years.”

“Six thousand?”

“Yes, I was one of the group that sealed away Ivan Ooze.  My parents and I actually fled our home planet when he invaded, conquering it.  I was a child at that time.  Zordon in fact had counseled us to take sanctuary and refuge on Earth.  We accepted.  With Ancient Greece being as sparsely populated as it was then, it was easy for us to build a small farm and house in the countryside,” he elaborated.  “We created a good life for ourselves.  I even married a local and had a son, further securing our place here.  However, Ivan set his sights on Earth five years later and invaded.”

“He pursued you that long?”

“Ivan was not one to let opponents survive without being subdued somehow.  He knew we had escaped and sought us out when he attacked Earth.”

“Bummer, as my students would say,” Tommy mentioned.

“Adequately put.  Our home was attacked and pillaged.  We defended for as long as we could but soon retreated to the Command Center.  Our timing was terrific since Zordon was assembling a team of adolescents—all earthlings—to fight against Ivan to defend the Earth.  He asked if I would join his cause.  I did.  However, since I was the youngest and not qualified, I was not made leader, he added in light humor.

Tommy cocked his head at this.  “You seem to have grown into it, though.”

“Only after much practice over several years.  Thank you, though.”

“Of course.”  Tommy drank a swig of his tea.  He grimaced.  _Some teas should only be drunk warm,_ he reflected, refilling his mug.  “So how did you all fight against Ivan?  We couldn’t even beat his oozemen without morphing.”

“Simple.  We became Ninjetti.”

Tommy gaped.  Upon reflecting, he should not have been surprised by this answer.  _Still…_

“It seemed more prudent than to use the untested Power Coins or the Great Power.  Morphing into Rangers at that time was only theoretical and Zordon and Ninjor were keen on keeping both venues as contingencies in case we needed them as backup.”

“You don’t sound like you were sold on that idea.”

Sean shrugged.  “I was the youngest.  Brash.  Responsible and even disciplined but not yet rational.  Still, I wished to defend this planet against the monster that had driven us from my first home.  I was angry and vengeful but I did not know by how much.  Zordon still took a chance with me.  He needed to.  We needed all of us.

“We trained, my teammates merging with their Sacred Animals while I worked in tandem with mine, warned that to merge with mine could create a future I was not ready for.

“When we could no longer wait, we attacked one of Ivan’s battalions.  Thankfully, we destroyed some of his minions, and a couple of his generals.  Weeks later, we destroyed one of his prison fortresses.  He came after us, finally enraged with us.  Up until then he called us “exercises for his forces to practice on”.  We fought him.  Despite being Ninjetti, we lost.  Ivan was too powerful for us and his reach only grew.  We needed more power but the team would not make that choice, choosing fear over desperation and love; and neither Zordon nor Ninjor would force us to increase our powers.  Thus, we did what we could in weakening Ivan’s ranks and even sabotaging his plans.”

Tommy listened.

“Ivan, however, grew tired of us.  He attacked us all but we succeeded in escaping from him.  Singling me out because of my age, he lured me with my wife and child.  Zordon cautioned me not to rescue them.  I was not ready and I would be outnumbered.”

_Hostage and ambush,_ Tommy thought.

“Alone, I met his ambush, battling through it.  My teammates joined me soon though, urging me to retreat.  I refused, not wishing to yield another thing or person to that monster.  We continued fighting but continued losing despite each neutralized oozeman.  I was knocked to the ground, beaten and worn.  One by one, my friends were similarly overwhelmed.  Ivan threw my wife and son to the ground.  My friends were unable to help; nor could I.  When I tried to reach them, he blasted me down.”  He gestured to the crevice cracking through his check, temple, and the side of his brow.  “This scar, I have carried it ever since.  He struck me down, and slayed my family, and disintegrating them before I could touch my son—the one nearest to me.  There was no funeral—no remains; only a memorial.”  Sean withdrew into silence.

Tommy remained sitting, his blood boiling.  If something like that had happened to David, Tommy was not sure how he would respond, or even act.  He breathed in, grateful and glad that he and the others had slammed Ivan into a comet years ago, destroying that monster once and for all.  “We got him though,” he asserted.

“I am grateful!” Sean said quietly.  “Coming from your hands, it was justice.  But from mine, even from this century, it would have been vengeance.  I thank you, all of you.”  Bringing his hands before him in prayer, he bowed his to Tommy.

Tommy bowed back, folding his left fingers over his right fist.  “It could have been vengeance,” he said.  “He had destroyed the Command Center, our powers, and nearly killed Zordon.  We didn’t even know if Zordon was still alive when we ended him.”

“You acted as you should have,” Sean remarked.  “You chose the citizens instead of just Zordon.  It was a great move on your parts.  I was deeply moved by it.”

“Thanks.”  Tommy mustered his thoughts again.  “I distracted you.  You were saying about your family?”

“My family,” Sean stared into space.

“Sean?”

Sean breathed in.  “Torn and consumed with grief,” he resumed.  “I called on the Phoenix within me, fusing with it.  Fueled with more power, I teleported my maimed friends and myself to the Command Center.

“None of the others could continue fighting.  Partially healed, I choose to return.  We had already strategized how we would confine Ivan.  I only had to do it myself.  I had not faced such responsibility before.  However, Zordon congratulated me on my decision making after becoming a full Ninjetti and encouraged me to carry out the plan, stating that he would send the others as soon as they were healed enough.  Ivan could not remain unchallenged for long.  Determined, I teleported back to the battle.

“Ivan lashed out.  I struck back.  We traded blows but I was not yet his equal.  I couldn’t be.  However, I was the only one on Earth that could fight.  Too many had died because of him.  I, therefore, continued fighting.  However, my limits neared.  Retreat was only a last option for me.

“Knowing the Great Power existed (Ninjor had shown us the Pyramid of Power and Monolith), I summoned my portion of it, reaching for the completion of my powers.  It came and I morphed.  Reenergized, healed, and fully informed of my powers, I met Ivan’s attacks better, pushing him to where we wished to seal him.  Dulcea joined me.  Reaching the place, we began to seal him but found we could not without the others.  Healed even less than I had when I had returned, they joined us, offering no contest.  Uniting our power, we sealed Ivan into the egg and into the ground, the strain further weakening all of us.”  Sean bowed his head, closing his eyes.  “One died afterward almost immediately.  Three others died that night.  They died because of my recklessness and because of their devotion to protect this world.”

Tommy’s left pectoral tensed, squeezing his heart.  He massaged it, keeping his eyes on Sean.  “That’s a burden,” he said.

Sean nodded a few times.  “I do what I can to honor them though.”

“I think that shows—at least with us.”

“Thank you.”

“How many were in your team?”

“Eight.”

“Same as us,” Tommy mused aloud.   “Interesting.”

The day remained bright outside.

“Sean?” Tommy interjected.  “There weren’t any other birds on the Pyramid of Power.”  Even though he had only seen the Pyramid’s emblem once, he saw it clearly in remembrance.  That wasn’t a moment he could easily forget.  The other Mighty Morphin’ Rangers and he had succeeded in defeating the Gargoyles, earning the right to own the Power.  The monolith’s door had slid up, and the golden pyramid had slid forward, towering over them, its circle emblem of the six sacred animals soon blazing with golden, solar energy.  “Only mine and Kim’s.”

“Originally mine was on it.  The Gargoyles were created after we sealed away Ivan, choosing to protect the Power from unwise and greedy hands.  Only through cooperation and skill, the markings of compassion and discipline, could the Gargoyles be defeated.”  Tommy agreed with that summation.  “However, the emblem changed after the Phoenix’s was bestowed to me.”

“So does that mean that your zord combines with ours?”

“Yes.  And a mighty combination of force the Shogun MegaFalconzord and Ninja MegaPhoenixzord would be together.”

Tommy imagined that, curious to see how the NinjaMegazord would perform differently with Sean’s Zord.  It would make for more efficient finishers especially if they needed to use both megazords.  However, he was distracting himself.  “What about Zack’s?” he asked.

“There was originally a Lion on the Pyramid.  However I can only speculate that it did not show itself to your team at that time because there was no one on your team with that Sacred Animal.  As for zord combinations, I have some ideas on that.  Let that suffice for now.”

Tommy agreed.  He glanced out the window, digesting all Sean told him.  “You really are a phoenix?”

“In astral and human form.”

“What happens when you die?  To your body?”

“My body reconstitutes into my newborn form; my genes do not change.  The remaining ashes cushion and warm me.”

“How do you know?” Tommy asked, careful to keep his tone professionally curious.  Zack would have blurted out the question.  However, speculating that the topic could be offensive and that there were quite possibly only a handful of people Sean could talk to about this, Tommy choose to be diplomatic, not wishing to harm their growing rapport.  _A rapport that had deepened as much as it had grown_ , he noted.

“I have been told,” Sean replied nonchalantly.

Tommy relaxed.

“I also recall,” Sean elaborated.  “I can probe the past.  Plus, I’ve also had it recorded.  It has never changed.” The man simply sat there, waiting.  No questions or comments exiting his mouth.  Tommy simply readied himself to listen more.  It felt important to know this.

“After Ivan had been sealed,” Sean continued, “Several of his legions fled from Earth.  The rest of my team and I chased some of the stragglers off world.  Others we destroyed.  However we kept loosing numbers.  Soon it was just me.  Dulcea had returned to Phaedos to preserve her life so that at least one of us was alive in case Ivan escaped.  She also swore to protect the rest of the Great Power, seeing what it had done to me.  What I had allowed to be done with me.  Since then… while I can visit the afterlife, I can never stay there.  I cannot hold my son, wife, or parents.”  Sean sighed.  “I miss them, Tommy,” he explained.  “As great a love as you had for Kimberly and Katherine mine was deeper.  I am complete without them but I miss them.  Mother, father, wife, and son.  It is when I let that sorrow possess me that I descend from wisdom.”

Tommy scrutinized the older man, harnessing his eyes.  He had never reflected on what it would be like for a mortal to suddenly become immortal, or close to it.  Something like that had happened to Zordon.  _And Dulcea,_ he reflected.

“Is Dulcea still alive?” he asked.

“Yes.”

That’s a relief, he silently celebrated.  She may be ageless but if she left her safe haven, strayed too far from the Ninjetti Temple, the years she had existed would catch up killing her, as had happened to Zordon after Ivan attacked him.  The Rangers had saved Zordon then, thankfully, proving what they could do as Rangers and as Ninjetti.  However, Zordon was dead now.  Dulcea had the option of dying.  However, even though Sean could die, he was forbidden to remain dead.  Like Dulcea and Zordon, Sean was incarcerated.  “I want to say I’m sorry,” Tommy said.

“You need not,” Sean mentioned.  “Thank you though.”  He smiled though, beaming throughout his body.  “I have experienced this process for over several millennia.  Even nirvana loses its appeal after a number of lifetimes… but I return to it every now and then.  Thank you for your compassion.”

Tommy nodded.  He then blinked and squinted, a glare blinding him.  He glanced around him.  Nothing else shined into his retinae.  The glare vanished.  He sat puzzled.  Sean remained unchanged, patient in the moment, his face neither neutral nor a mask, but welcoming.  “What happened after Ivan?” Tommy offered.

“My parents and I returned to our land as the rest of my teammates healed,” Sean continued, neither laughed nor sighed.  Instead, he hung his head.  “We nursed each other as we could.  I was called away on a mission.  While I was gone, bandits pillaged my home, killing my parents.”

“Go on.” Tommy prodded.

“They had survived Ivan Ooze only to be butchered by humans.  Vengeance grew in my heart yet I yielded to grace, choosing to heal.  Nevertheless aggrieved, I continued Zordon’s work, believing that I would see my family again when I passed on.”  A smile stained his lips, poisoning his cheeks and eyes.  Tommy however held his gaze on Sean.  “Within a decade though, my team died.  Natural mortality.  When death came for me, though, I was denied my family, forced to only glance at only one of them—the rest in peripheral—lasting only an instant!  Zordon advised me to live my life with grace, acceptance and benevolence.  I agreed.  However, after decades more of prayer and happiness, I was barred again!  Enraged, I committed suicide numerously as a child—finally refusing to leave myself in Zordon and Alpha’s care as a newborn.  I blamed them, and the Power, for leaving me alone.  Thus, I stayed on my land, starving to death and, nestled in ashes, reincarnated and cried without the convenience of words as the century continued, a slave to my wrath!  And in that, my telepathy grew, plaguing the land with malice and anguish, baring all from entering.  My teammates were dead and my family was untouchable.”

Drops of sweat trickled down Tommy’s back.  Goosebumps sprang up his arms and back.  He recalled Sean’s eyes after he had beheaded Scorpina.  His own grew wider.  Despite the centuries that had passed since this, Sean still clung to the bitterness of that time.  Tommy marveled at the accuracy and precision of Sean’s memory.  Still interested in learning more, he kept listening.

“Death could not relieve me,” Sean continued, “Could not assuage me.  Neither could birth—or life.  I shunned my powers, my life, and death.  Nothing brought healing!”  Sean released his tight fists, breathing in and out several times.  “Peace transformed into melancholy—into that which is worse, magnified by a baby’s mind with an adult’s knowledge.  No balance.  Orion found me in such a state.  After seeing me reincarnate, he cared for me, refusing to let me die again.  In response, I raged against him.  He persisted.  In response, I remained thunderously silent, glaring and scowling at him, resenting him for saving me and then wanting my help.”

“He must have been patient, then,” Tommy remarked.  “People didn’t live long back then.”

“He was a mid-teenager when he found me, telling me multiple times what he wanted from me.  Ivan’s beasts and their descendants still remained throughout Ancient Greece.  He had sought me out because he had heard that I was the one whom had rebelled and hunted them against them.  I did not believe him.  Once capable, I probed his mind for the treachery I was certain he held.  My abilities were not as strong then as they are now but I gleamed enough.  His intentions proved honorable.  My wrath became less founded.  Soon I began to trust him and myself, which proved a deeper task.  We became friends and after some persuading, I, albeit grudgingly, agreed to join him.”

“Scorpio was one of the monsters, wasn’t he?”

“Correct but he was the last one we faced.”

Tommy regarded the man.  Being a teenager was tough at any age.  And to do it over and over must have gotten exhausting and frustrating, if not infuriating.  Tommy wondered if he continued as he was if he would be a hermit for long periods in his life, mortal though he was.  He had a second chance at a living.  Sean had been forced to endure several.  Plowing through his Bachelor’s, Master’s and Ph. D programs had gnawed on many of Tommy’s friendships and relationships.  Looking back on those times, Tommy did not regret any of those choices.  Regardless, those people were still alive, on earth with the option of reconnected if Tommy or them chose.  Sean’s friends and relations weren’t.  After so many centuries, the man still loved and missed his family.  _Quite a burden,_ Tommy thought.  “Does it get easier?  Seeing them briefly, I mean?”

“Only at times.  To truly love an individual is open yourself up to be both inspired and devastated by those people.  Pain, young one, is the price for true intimacy.  Acceptance is the hardest task for me to maintain throughout all of my lives.  It is the one thing that forestalls bliss.”

“I get that,” Tommy mentioned.  He breathed this in, digesting it.  However he could not   spend the day imagining what Sean’s lives had been.  “Has Rocky come back yet?” he asked.

“He has not.  However, we are still searching for him.”  Sighing he gazed into the window.  “Here we are worrying about old friends.”

“Orion?”

“How ironic is it that he is allied with Scorpio, his last prey?”

“Under Jason’s control?”

Sean shook his head once.  “No, Rita and Zedd are controlling him.”

“He’s their boss, so he is.”

“A teenager’s defense,” Sean commented, smirking.

Closing his eyes and inhaling quickly, Tommy shivered his head atop his neck.  “How would you know that?  Why’s it even important?” he sputtered.

“Responsibility in answer for the second question.  As to the first, I know how magic feels and works.  More importantly, I know how nature feels and works, especially when in harmony; and Orion is in disharmony.”

“So anyone out of balance is under those two’s magic?”

Sean chuckled, and then fully laughed shattering his earlier gloom.  “Not at all,” he said.  “You would be giving those two more credit than they deserve.”

“Guess that’s right,” Tommy mentioned.  Silently accepting Sean’s positon, Tommy sank back on that, digesting the long tale.  Zordon had never divulged as much about his past before but that had been his choice.  As a teenager, Tommy had not been interested in the multi-century long lifespans of his allies.  He just wanted to do his duty, remain loyalty to his friends, and maintain his integrity.

“We both can agree that Orion is a victim as you were,” Sean continued, “Thrusted into a conflict he had no chance of refusing.”  The edges of Sean’s eyes sagged.

Bowing his head, Tommy nodded.  He closed his eyes, silently sighing.  It had been almost exactly the same with him.  The Putties had appeared.  He had fought them off.  Then Rita came and shackled his will to hers.  Years after that, that witch had enslaved Katherine with an even stronger spell.  _How many more innocents where there?_

“For now, you must focus on yourself,” Sean instructed.  “How and why you fell.”

Tommy grunted through his nose, looking down.  There was nothing he could have done back then as a civilian.  Even after he got his powers, how could he fight off Rita and then Lord Zedd’s magic?  He had boasted that he would never turn against his friends again but Goldar had demolished that notion with Lord Zedd’s magic.  And now, years later, he was still a puppet for evil.  It did not matter by whom.

Then he peered at Sean.  The man had not been referring to his mind enslavement.  The battle.  “I’m not sure.”

“Your memories are still intact.  I saw them.”

“Shouldn’t you wait before butting in?” Tommy asked, his voice sharpened and defenses raised.  “You’re too casual with your telepathy, Sean.  Age doesn’t give you the right to invade our thoughts,” he finished despite wanting to say memories.  Regardless, Tommy glared at Sean.

The other man neither shifted nor shrugged.  “I practice being conscious and present while filtering those through love and its children,” Sean answered.

Goosebumps pricked up Tommy’s arms and neck.  He drew his head backward.  The words had an authority he could not articulate, scholar though he was.  Nevertheless it was there, undeterred by his calmly poised response.  Neither slacking nor tensing, Sean seemed to grow in stature.

“I—I… don’t understand,” Tommy stuttered.

“We are Power Rangers, but that is simply an excuse,” Sean said, the remorse from earlier evaporated.  “In truth, I am Zordon’s heir.”

“Excuse me?”  Tommy’s eyes dilated.  He glanced a hair each side.  Fixing them on Sean, he broke away.  Light swelled within the room, but not from the windows.

“Just as Jason is the same to Maligore and Dark Specter.  Still, you raise a good point.  What use is power if it is not disciplined?  Especially when it grows… like yours is.” 

Tommy squinted through the star blazing and pulsing before him.  Sean remained there, obscured and yet clear simultaneously.

“The light you see is real.”

Tommy froze, completely agog and unsure of how to respond.  Terror and amazement grew within him, spearing each other.

“Can you decipher color?” Sean inquired.

Shielding his eyes, Tommy blinked.  “Just white… like an off-white.”

“Indeed.”

Dropping his gaze, Tommy shook his head, clearing his eyes.  Opening them again, he sipped the tea again.  “Sorry.  I can’t.”

“More will meet your senses as your continue on this and even if you don’t continue.  Avoidance and neglect do not diminish the existence of truths,” Sean advised, sitting as simply and calmly as ever.

“What truths are those?”

“You are beginning to discover what it means to be a full human being.”

As if exhaling, the light faded to normal.  Tommy sighed, relaxing a bit.

“However, moving back to your bout, you must decide if you want to remember.”

Tommy shook his head and groaned.  “Shouldn’t I be beyond this kind of thinking—being a veteran and all?” he blurted out.  He shut his eyes, turning his head away from Sean and bowing it.

“You are a veteran that has achieved much in the name of Good.”

Tommy reopened his eyes.  Drinking a swig again, Tommy bore his eyes into Sean.  “Yeah,” he sighed.  “Sean, I still want the quiet life.  I’ve done too much.”  He sighed.  “And now… it’s too much!”

“You have done what you have been asked to do, and over half of what you have done was through your own decision making,” Sean said.

_This started without my choice,_ Tommy mentally remarked, shaking his head, and grasping his brow with a hand.  He stayed there for a handful of breaths.  He dropped the hand.  Sean still eyed him.  Tommy met Sean’s gaze.  “Did you hear what I just thought?”

Sean nodded, remaining silent and still, his presence both gentle and intense now but not bright.  “May I respond to your remark?” Sean asked.

Tommy nodded, staring past Sean.

“You have had these thoughts before,” Sean reminded Tommy.  “As have your friends.  Every teammate you have started off as a Ranger without their consent.  Was Zordon wrong to have abducted Jason, Zack, Trini, Kimberly, and Billy after Rita Repulsa’s earthquake?  Should he have sat back and let Earth be conquered without a defense?  Should I have last week, knowing what would happen if you were no longer ignorant?  I am uncertain.  However, I know that we were not upfront about all of the details when those choices were made.  Only in the aftermath did we divulge.  This is the poison that secrets secrete.  And it is the main point Zordon and I disagreed on if you recall.”

Tommy gaped, struggling to recall what Sean meant.  Then he did.  However, moisture collected on Tommy’s brow.  He wiped it away.  He exhaled.  “It happened though.  All of them.”

Staring into Tommy’s eyes, Sean nodded.

“Can’t change that, right?”

“Is that a question or an evasion?”

Tommy held out his right hand.  Closing his eyes, Tommy concentrated, wishing to have in his hand what was already a part of him.  He waited.  Brief numbness.  And then… metal, small in shape, materialized on his palm, its weight barely noticeable.  Tommy opened his eyes, verifying what he already felt:  his Power Coin.

“Why did you do that?” Sean said.

“I wanted to see if I could do it.”

“For what aim?”

Tommy fiddled with it.  “To see if we were one.”  A corner of his mouth tugged back in a half smile.  However he felt gladder and fulfilled in this emotion then he had from a barrel of laughs.  “And we are,” he determined, holding his coin for Sean to see.  “I don’t need this to morph now, do I?”

“No.”

“Agreed.  I didn’t need it against Jason.  I just morphed because I choose to.”  Tommy closed his fingers around the coin.  It dissolved back into his skin, his tissues.  It did not burn or tickle him.  Unable to fully describe how the coin felt when it fused into his body, Tommy looked back at Sean.  “You’ve been wanting us to learn this, haven’t you?”

“Indeed and also more.”

Nodding, Tommy flicked his dominate index finger at Sean.  “To that end, I want you to train me,” he said, his eyes firm.  “Train all of us.”

“You are a talented martial artist with incredible power.  I already began training you.  What do you wish to accomplish by making this request?”

Tommy folded his arms across his chest.  “You said that there’s more to us than being human, right?  I need you to train us better, teach us how to be full Ninjetti like you and Dulcea.”

“I have had six thousand years of mortal lives while Dulcea remained ageless for that time,” Sean commented, his gaze firmly pressing into Tommy’s face.  “You and the others do not have that time, nor does this planet.”

“We only have weeks.”

“If not days or hours,” Sean corrected.  “I do not know Jason’s plans for Earth.”

Tommy scoffed.  “His goal is simple, isn’t it?  Conquer it.”

“Sarcasm doesn’t become you.  However, yes, you are correct at least in the short term.  I do not yet know what his plans are for Earth after conquering it.”  Sean then looked away from Tommy, staring into the distance.

Tommy peered at the man.  Sean offered no clue as to what distracted him.  Therefore, Tommy waited, draining the rest of his tea.  He set the mug down.  Sean returned his gaze to Tommy.  “Very well,” he said.  “We will begin after you have eaten and rested a bit more.  No sooner.  Stretch thoroughly before you find me.”

Tommy nodded.

With that, Sean stood, bowed his head and walked out of the room.

Tommy looked out the window, wondering what had distracted Sean. Nevertheless, he needed rest. His eyes were sore, and grew heavy. A nap would do him good and help him retain everything Sean had told him.  “Can we get our team back?” he whispered, settling his head on his pillow.  His eyelids weighed tons. Unable to answer his question, Tommy yielded to their weight, convinced that sleep would help because sleep would help him learn and process all that Sean had told him.


	7. Seeking Beyond

Having closed the door softly, Sean hastened down the hall and stairs with little noise on muted feet.  Lifting his wrist, Sean pressed Billy’s button on his communicator.

_“Go ahead, Sean.”_

“Billy, I need you to scan for Rocky’s bio-vibrations within and about Tommy’s surface property, emphasizing on the vicinity just outside his bedroom window.”

_“Standby.”_

Exiting into the backyard, Sean centered himself once more, opening himself for more impressions.  Finally they had a lead.  However, it was slipping from them.  Normally, Sean could have traced Rocky’s presence back to its source but as soon as he had tried, the line had stopped, leaving only the impression.

_“I’m detecting a fragment of them, phasing into this dimension at those coordinates.  It’s dwindling, but it’s definitely Rocky’s.”_

“Like a projection,” Sean surmised, confirming his worries.  “Can you trace where he is phasing from?”

_“I’m attempting to ascertain that right now.”_

Waiting, Sean took in the clear blue sky and the warmth of the day.

_“No.  We’re still being blocked.”_

The search program must have delayed or frozen before completing.  Sean breathed through his irritation.  Ever since Richie had reported that Rocky had been lurking outside his house yesterday all traces of Rocky afterward had vanished.  Sean had sensed an echo from the Chamber of Command but after that, had no clues as to where Rocky was.  Even then Sean had not accepted that all traces of Rocky had vanished.  Now, he had evidence that his suspicions and instincts were correct.  Rita and Zedd were somehow both shielding Rocky from Sean’s and the Ranger Lair’s sensors while also sabotaging the Lair’s equipment. 

 _“Our equipment just can’t compute the data it’s receiving even though it is programmed to,”_ Billy explained.

Given that Billy had been able to keep up with Command Center’s technology with human technology back in mid1990s (sometimes even exceeding the Command Center’s capabilities), Billy should have been able to find at least a trace of Rocky due to post millennium advances on Earth.  They remained thwarted.  Nevertheless, Haley and Billy had tried locating Rocky throughout the night, never letting up except to nap in rotations.  Before that, they had even boosted the Lair’s sensors to 20% beyond their peak.  Despite that, they had only been able to scan several local astral planes and a nearby dimension.    While impressive in most terrestrial scientific communities and worthy of a patent, this progress was small based on early and recheck projections.  The longer they scanned through dimensions, the harder it tasked their equipment.  Facing an overload, they decided to divert their scans to their plane of Earth’s dimension, rotating their sensor sweeps like a radar across the planet.

“Jason is dangled Rocky before us without any instructions.  As it stands, it seems that Rocky is not a hostage but bait.”  _How very like Lord Zedd,_ he reflected. _Even Rita._

_“Have you told Tommy already?”_

“No.  I told him to rest and eat before I trained him.”

“Sean, he won’t like that you hid this.  Or that you’re betraying yourself.”

“Relay our progress to the others.  I’ll inform Tommy.”

_“Agreed.  How’s Tommy doing though?”_

“Recovering well.  See what you can do on your end.  I’ll do what I can from here.”

_“Affirmative.  Over and out.”_

Lowering his wrist, Sean surveyed the forest-bordering grass yard, sniffing for another crumb.  Zedd and Rita could have been hiding Rocky in one of their Dark Dimensions.  However, those were not the only dimensions within reality.  Sinking further within himself, Sean reached out, feeling and scanning through each astral plane of this point, reaching into nearby dimensions.  There had to be more to Rocky’s signature; a trail of some kind.  Once more, he picked up nothing.  Floating on his calm, he sank further into himself, scanning across and through the earth, the moon, solar system, and the galaxy, and then between several galaxies, their inhabitants a mass of auras and intelligences.  Focused, he sustained himself with breath.

Nothing still.

 _Impressive,_ he reflected again.

Breathing in, Sean retracted his awareness to the Milky Way galaxy, touching several bordering dimensions, and probing each one’s astral planes.

Rocky still remained gone.

Sean refused to be deterred by these obstacles.  Even if Rocky had died, a part of Rocky’s essence, his spiritual core, would remain.  He owed it to previous power rangers, to Zordon, and Alpha 5.  Their demonstrations of persistence and loyalty, his instincts, and his wisdom fueled his hope.  Besides, Jason, Rita, and Zedd could only shield Rocky from Sean for so long.  Even the Grand Monarch had limits and he was not as experienced as Sean.  Unfortunately, so did the Rangers and Haley.  They needed another Eltarian Command Center or Power Chamber.  However, Eltarian officials, yielding to the conditions Jason and Sean had agreed to during their cold war truce, had refused to set up another base on Earth.  The only reason they had not was because the officials had feared that Jason would have struck at the earth with all of his armies.  Sean had thought of this as rationally deluded cowardice as at least one ranger team had been empowered every year since Rita Repulsa’s escape.  Earth had not been defenseless but its protectors and citizens had remained ignorant to a massive threat while Jason and his forces had grown, slowly reconquering several solar systems throughout the universe and soon the M-51 galaxy.  Jason had been smart throughout his reign.  Despite the stretch of his empires, Jason never waged war beyond his means.  With every army he sent to conquer a planet, he had at least two in reserve if they first fell.  If Rita and Zedd were to be pushed back from the moon, which the Ninjetti Rangers could easily do, Jason could summon the Machine Empire in an instant.  Sean was playing a delicate game with Earth’s safety.  He needed to find Rocky and determine if Rocky needed to be replaced.  The days of Jason dictating how the earth was to be defended were over.

Sean stood in astral form, still tethered to his body on Earth, upon the arid landscape of a Dark Dimension.  Thick night surrounded him, unending in its vastness and devoid of stars.  Fog passed through his transparent body.  Sean could have teleported into the dimension but he did not want to be isolated from his teammates.  Plus, some dimensions were beyond his reach anyway, while others were tricky to teleport into and out of.  Sensing and astral projecting was the best compromise.

No monsters or citizens met him or crossed his path.  A few stones and boulders littered the landscape.  Casting out his thoughts, he listened to the ripples around him.  Nothing of Rocky appeared.  Sean sensed no other beings within or beyond his sight.  He frowned, anticipating Adam’s displeasure.  Brave and practical though Adam was, the man was in pain.  It was in part to honor Adam that Sean did this.  Additionally, Sean had chosen Rocky to be a Ranger again, and as mentor and leader to of this team Sean was responsible with carrying this out.  Thirdly, regardless of the circumstances though, Sean could not allow an empowered Power Ranger to serve Evil.  The repercussions would be worse than Jason being a Ninjetti that served in evil.  Finding Rocky was adamant!

Contingencies continued adding themselves to his thoughts.  His focus lessening.  Aware that he was thinking too much, he calmed down.  This line of thinking had its time and place and while valid, it did not serve him presently.  Instead, he just needed to be present and feel.  Bowing his astral head, he “listened”, “smelled”, and “touched” all around him, allowing the sensations to carry his attention like unbroken waves on the ocean.  He stayed light and centered in his being, thinking only minutely of Rocky as an intension, glancing at an image of him now and then.  More impressions met his awareness.  However he found no clues of Rocky.

He felt a change in his body’s surroundings.  “So is that tomorrow’s lesson?” Tommy asked.

It was time for Sean to return fully to Earth.  He would resume this later.  Shutting his eyes, he vanished from the Dark Dimension.  Opening his eyes, he uncrossed his legs and stepped onto the ground.  Tommy stood a foot in front from his door.  Leaning on his left hip, he stared at Sean.

“Possibly,” Sean responded, stepping to the ground.  “Or it could be the eighty-third.”

Nodding, Tommy limped toward Sean.

“Having trouble with your feet?”

“Just a little.  I think they’re tired,” Tommy added with a straight face.

Sean, however, smiled at the man.  “It’s good to hear your good humor.”  Tommy shrugged, trying to change his expression and then abandoned that.  “Ask yourself, Tommy,” Sean added.  “Would learning how to levitate truly help you beat Jason?”

“Never done it before.  Might be.”

“You flew as the White Ranger years back.”

“Not the same,” Tommy shrugged, gazing at the grass between him and Sean.  “You know him better than I do.”

“I know things he hid from you.  Nevertheless, my perception of him is in no way less valid as yours.”  He let the words sink in.  “Please answer my question.”

“I thought it was mine to ask?” Tommy replied, cocking a grin.

“Yours is to discover the meaning behind it along with its answer.”

“No.  It might help me if I knew who he is.”

“Did you need such insight in order to defeat Turban Shell?  Goldar?  Lord Zedd?”

Tommy stared at Sean.  “No, I beat them regardless.”

“Exactly.  The only way you can beat Jason is by knowing and being yourself.”

Tommy scoffed.  “I did.  I failed.”

“Are you sure?”  Sean allowed a moment to pass, keeping his awareness from Tommy’s mind.  Tommy fidgeted, avoiding eye contact.  “That was then,” Sean continued.  “You are still alive.  You can improve.  Learn”

Tommy eyed Sean.  “You had six thousand years and you couldn’t beat him.”

“Actually I could have but I did not.”

Tommy blinked and gaped.  

“But not at Adam’s studio.”

Tommy narrowed his eyes at Sean, folding his arms across his chest.  “So why didn’t you?”

“I will address that later.  Summon your sword.”

Tommy glanced around.  “We under attack?”

Sean reached for the small of his back.  Summoning his katana, he whipped it around, aiming his tip at Tommy’s heart.  “You are,” he said, morphing.  Tongues of emerald lightning bounced and rolled down the blade, jumping off the tip.

Tommy jumped out of their way.

Dipping his blade into an upward arc, Sean slashed his blade toward the ground.

Tommy missed the kinetic wave.  His eyes widened further.  Then they narrowed.

Sean immediately spun around, swinging his sword to behead Tommy.  Materializing in a white flash, Saba parried the attack.  Sean stabbed with the Dragon Dagger.  Breaking contact, Tommy jumped backward, gaping the entire time.

Sean snapped his fingers.  The two of them found themselves at a quarry.  The quarry!  Tommy staggered.

“Come on, Tommy,” Sean challenged.  “Do more.  Show me that your legend is true.”

Their sword tips sliced against each other.  Twice.  Thrice.  Four times.  More.  Casting off sparks.  Sean charged forward, breaking Tommy’s defenses, forcing the man to sidestep.

“You’re hesitating,” Sean commented.  He silently morphed into his ranger outfit.

Tommy sneered.  Reaching behind his waist, he called out!  “It’s morphin’ time!  Falcon Ninjetti Power!”  Now morphed, he grounded his stance.  The two Rangers sidestepped in a circle, each one poised to defend and attack.

“Thank you for joining the party,” Sean remarked.

Tommy smirked and sneered from under his helmet.  “Taunting now?  Is that what you’ve learned over 6,000 years?”

Sean crossed his blades together and fired, slamming an emerald beam into Tommy’s chest.  Tommy crashed backward in a haze of sparks, skidding on rocks and stones.

“You are slower,” Sean barked, advancing with murder in his shoulders.

Tommy jerked back, then back somersaulted to his feet.  Holding Saba out, he attacked. 

Sean parried and then scrapped Tommy’s right upper arm with his dagger, and slammed his katana down on Tommy’s left shoulder.

Wincing Tommy, back stepped, cradling his arms.

“And you are unfocused,” Sean concluded, holding his weapons at his sides.

Tommy glanced up at Sean, faint wheezes filtering through his mask.

“You’re trying to hide your fatigue,” Sean critiqued.  “Foolish!”  Charging, he slashed with his katana and stabbed with his dagger, pushing Tommy backward and further off balance.  Then he swung and pushed with his feet, continuously changing how he attacked, even using his limbs, pushing Tommy toward his knees. 

Disarmed, Tommy parried some but dodged more of Sean’s attacks.  Still Sean snuck attacks through his blocks and dodges.  Tommy’s breathing and heartbeat quickened.

“White Ranger!” Saba yelled, charging through the air toward Tommy.

Shooting the saber down with his Dagger, Sean closed in, raising both weapons.

Crestfallen, Tommy caught both of Sean’s wrists, pushing the other Ranger back.  Sean fired a blast from his shield.  Stumbling and gasping, Tommy released Sean.  Stepping forward, Sean kicked Tommy onto his back.  Tommy somersaulted backward again.  Sean chased him.  He lunged over Tommy, stabbing and sliced at Tommy’s neck.  Tommy caught the attacks.  Inches of air separated Tommy from the blades.  Air, and force.  Sean pressed harder and through, stabbing the ground beside Tommy’s ear and holding his sword blade at Tommy’s neck.

“You are still alive, so breathe,” Sean said with ease, his pulse having remained calm throughout the match.  The round was over at least for now.  His student, however, swallowed air too quickly.  “Slow your breaths,” Sean calmly instructed.  “You survived the round.”

Still sitting, Tommy dropped his head.  “Because you spared me,” he admitted.  _Just like Jason did before he gutted me._   He shivered at the memory, gripping his middle.

Demorphing, Sean peered at his student, unsure if Tommy wanted to remain his student.  He stepped to Tommy’s side.  Tommy sat up, draping an arm over a raised knee.  “I would not have killed you,” Sean said.

“Not even accidently?” Tommy said, a brief scoff coloring his voice.

“You give me too little credit.  I fought off Goldar, Scorpina, Lord Zedd, and Rita to save Zack.  I think I can handle a Power Ranger,” he added airily.

“I thought a Ranger would be harder to beat.”

“Perhaps.”

“Sean, you could have destroyed all of us in one fight,” Tommy said.  “You are a master beyond masters.  Your strength is incredible.”

“The latter of that statement also applies to you,” Sean said.

Tommy turned his head at Sean.  “Just not you.”  Turning away, he bowed his head at the stones between his legs.  “And not Jason,” he muttered.

Sean laid a hand on Tommy’s shoulder.  “Let us continue then.”

Tommy shook his head, gazing away.  “It’s no good, Sean,” he said, demorphing.

Sean surveyed him.

Tommy finally looked Sean in the eye.  “I cannot win.  I’m not good enough.”

Sean kept his hand upon Tommy’s shoulder, sustaining the calm within him but also increasing his compassion toward Tommy.  “Would you please explain?” he asked.

“Last year, I could get up and fight at my best after something like this… but now…?”  Shaking his head, he shrugged.  “I don’t know,” he said.  “I just can’t.”

“What did you want before Billy showed up at your front door?”

“Honestly, a life where I didn’t have to be a Ranger.  Our powers were gone and we’d destroyed our enemies.  Or so we thought.”  He pinched the roof of his nose, closing his eyes.  He shrugged again.

“You did not know.”

“I saw Jason in that auditorium.  I was experienced.  There was no way he could have slipped away so fast without teleporting.  I just had no proof.”

“And conviction,” Sean offered.  “You also had no resources to go after Jason except yourself.”

“Not even a base.”

“Tommy… do not confuse your wanting a civilian life with negligence.”

“Wasn’t it though?” Tommy asked.

“It perhaps played a part in influencing you but you do not strike me as an irresponsible person.  Take your body for instance.  You are still in terrific shape, physically and metaphysically.”

Tommy eyed Sean.

“The chi projection,” Sean clarified, referring to how Tommy had stayed off being beheaded just now.  “Very well executed.”

Tommy offered a smile.  “Adam and Rocky had been trying to teach me that on and off all summer.”

“And you succeeded in using it.”

“Yeah, but if our match had been real, I would be dead now.”

“Tommy, you almost died yesterday.  This is—”

“I couldn’t defend myself from that.  Not from Jason.  Not from you.”

Sean stood up.  “Then either learn or hand over your coin and morpher.  Forfeit your power.”

Tommy gaped at Sean.  He then stared at his morpher and power coin.

“Decide.”

Tommy looked at the symbols for a long time.  Finally he looked Sean in the eye and stood, closing his hand around his coin.

“Let us continue,” Sean said, morphing.

Tommy morphed as well.  They drew their weapons.

“Hold on,” Tommy said. 

“Yes?”

“I want you to use your best this time,” Tommy requested.

“Then you would kill me which I cannot allow right now so I will not honor your request.”

“Come on, Sean!  You know what I mean.”

“I do.  But I don’t think you do.”  He sheathed the Dragon Dagger.  “Perhaps this will be sufficient though.”

Tommy peered.

Sean held the Sword of the Phoenix in front of his chest, the blade curving to his left.  Yellow lightning bolts cracked from the air and into the blade and his left hand.  Swinging the katana tip out forward, Sean hurled torrents of lighting at him.  Tommy jumped, stray bolts grazing his legs.  Groaning, he landed on his feet.  Sean met him, swinging his blade everywhere he could, false and true edges equal in his randomizing.  Tommy blocked some swings, but Sean cut against Tommy’s rips.  Tommy raised his legs to kick.  Sean slammed his elbows and palms into Tommy’s pressure points.  Tommy hobbled backward.  Sean pursued, always staying close.  Sheathing the Sword of the Phoenix, he attacked with fingers, toes, arms, and thighs, and shins, battering Tommy.  Tommy blocked less and less onslaughts.  Swinging his hand around, Sean slammed a Dragon Buster into Tommy, hurling the White Ranger backward.  Tommy slammed into the quarry wall, dropping onto the ground.  Smoke wafted from his suit.  His morph destabilized but he held it together.  The man could not stand but he could stay awake.  _Good._

“I am not finished,” Sean called out.  “And I am waiting.”

Tommy’s groans carried across the distance between them.  “I’m… not done,” he said, pushing himself up on his hands and knees.  He put wait on a foot.  He stumbled but forced himself to stand.

“White Ranger,” Sean called.  Pinkish red discharges crackled and sizzled into his katana blade.  Reaching backward, he swung it forward, hurling an electric blue tornado at Tommy.  Hurled into the air, explosions erupted about his suit, shattering his morph. 

Sean walked to Tommy’s side.  Rolling onto his side, Tommy rolled his eyes.  Pushing himself up, he crouched.  “You just kicked my butt,” he said.  He stamped to his feet, staggering slightly.  “Let’s keep going,” he said.

Sean nodded.

“It’s Morphin’ Time,” Tommy said.  “Falcon Ninjetti Power!”  Rejuvenated, he unsheathed Saba.

Drawing his katana, Sean lashed out.  Their swords clashed.

 

* * *

 

"These humans fascinate me to no end," Lord Zedd commented from his balcony.

Standing upon his balcony, he spied on Sean and Tommy.

“That White Ranger sure takes a beating,” Rita commented, staring through her Repulsascope.

“Tommy will emerge even stronger in spirit if Sean succeeds.  If not, the strain will kill him.”

“And anyone else who gets in their way,” Rita remarked.  “Personally, I hope for the latter.”

“As do I,” Zedd growled.  “However, we mustn’t take any chances.  Tommy must be out of the picture permanently.”

“Sire,” Goldar growled from within the Chamber.  “With two rangers alone, this is a golden opportunity!  Allow me the chance to slay those two—”

Whipping around, Lord Zedd stomped his staff.  “The four of us couldn’t defeat Sean, and _you_ want to lead a solo campaign against two of the greatest Power Rangers who have ever lived!  Do you wish me to waste my magic reviving all of my generals?  Perhaps I should just save the Rangers the chance and destroy you myself!”

Goldar slouched, hiding his face with his hand.  “Apologies, O Great One.  I—”

“Enough, Goldar!  We have nothing we can use against them.  For now, we will maintain our vigilance.  An opportunity will present itself,” Lord Zedd added, curling his fingers around his staff.

 

* * *

 

Tommy dodged the head slash, evading the repost.

Sean rammed the pummel of his katana into Tommy's shoulder.

“You’re merciless today,” Tommy gasped, skipping away and rolling his shoulder.

Sean attacked again.

Tommy parried.

Sean slashed across Tommy’s side.

Twisting off balance, Tommy fell on his back.

Pivoting around, Sean splashed for decapitation.

Tommy rolled away, strafing Sean’s shins with blasts from Saba.

Marching through them, Sean stabbed at the ground.

Tommy swung his legs out.

Sean jumped over them.

Tommy jumped to a squat.

Descending, Sean stabbed at Tommy’s middle.  Lunching out of reach, Tommy stabbed across Sean’s arm.

Crouching, Sean groaned.

Launching himself up, Tommy pivoted around, holding Saba’s tip underneath Sean’s helmet.  Anchored in his footing, Tommy steadied his breath.

Sean, however, did not look at Tommy.  Bright blue and green lightning crackled around him, raking Tommy’s suit and flowing into Sean’s sword.

Tommy staggered backward.

Pivoting toward Tommy, Sean swung his blade up, parallel to his side.  Massive blue lightning rained about his sides, framing him.

Sean slashed downward.  A yellow wave phased across and into Tommy.  He doubled over.  Yellow energy flashed and popped across his suit, Tommy groaned and wailed, his morph destabilizing.

Tommy fought to hold on—to keep himself strong, and together—but his skin wanted to tear apart, his muscles, too.  _Why’d he do this?_ he questioned, always an academic.  _Can a Power Ranger withstand a Megazord’s strongest attack?_   He sank to his knees, still fighting, bringing air into his lungs and throughout his body.  Blinking, he kept his eyes open.

Sean stood still before him, solemn in his stance, his posture unreadable.

Tommy bowed his head bringing meditation to his awareness.  He was a martial artist, had been one long before he had been a Power Ranger.

“Yes,” he uttered, tightening his right hand into a fist.  Closing his eyes, he prayed to live-meditated to be so.  Sean would not beat him, would not kill him this way.  He would fight.  Opening his eyes, he glared.

Sean hurled a whirlwind at Tommy.  Scooped into it, Tommy’s flailed, slipping from his center.  Still, he reached back to it.  Connected, he spun against the current, shattering the whirlwind.  He flew to the ground, squatted, and leapt against Sean, swinging his might against Sean’s raised katana.  “You may be strong but you’re no megazord,” Tommy growled.

Sean pushed Saba away, lunging forward.  Tommy staggered backward off balance.  Sean slashed across Tommy’s ribs and then slammed tip of his blade against Tommy’s heart.  Tommy fell backward, gasping, and then grimacing.  His ribs protested against breathing.  However, he was morphed.  He would heal and recover.  His body could recover… so long as Sean did not break Tommy’s morph.  Plus, Sean would not kill Tommy.  The man had just proved that; but he could exhaust Tommy.

Sheathing Saba, Tommy parried and struck with his arms and then his legs, unleashing his might once more and maintaining his endurance against Sean’s skill.  Tommy would improve.  He needed to even if he ended up black, blue, and red again.  He would improve.

The sun traveled over them.

Sean swung to behead.

Tommy dodged it.

Sean kneed Tommy’s solar plexus.  Pain and breath expounded out of him.  Grimacing, he wobbled and then bounced on the balls of his feet.  His breathing shallower.  He blocked the Sean’s knife hand strike, the cross to his kidney, but missed the leg sweep.  Tommy rolled with the inertia, rising into a lunge.  Sean was so fast, snapping a round kick at Tommy’s middle.  Still, Tommy blocked and fired off some strikes, succeeding in only scraping the surface of Sean’s defenses.

 _So this is what it’s like to fight a 6,000 year old warrior,_ he thought.  _Why hasn’t Goldar been this tough?_   Goldar was older. _At least he’s stopped with the lighting._

Sean rammed Tommy’s middle with lightning, shoving the White Ranger into the rocks.  Tommy pushed his head from the ground, determined to not give up but Sean might as well have attacked with an avalanche with that last assault.  His muscles ached.  His joints refused to move.  Collapsing onto the ground, he surrendered his morph.  He slammed his eyes shut, sure that his bones had been bruised underneath his bloated muscles.

“Well done,” Sean said.

Tommy rolled his face a few degrees toward Sean, the only movement he could muster.

“You did not give in until the end and you were able to improve as you fought.  Congratulations.”

Tommy shut his eyes, dropping his gaze from Sean.

“Rest, Tommy,” Sean encouraged.  It wasn’t a command but a request—a suggestion. 

“Take me home, Sean.” Tommy breathed into the ground.

“Of course,” Sean replied.

Touching down, they materialized.  Once more, Sean had not touched him.  Tommy wanted to ask how Sean did that.  However…  “You’re kicking my butt, Sean,” Tommy muttered through the grass.  The blades brushed against his lips and cheeks.

“This was a day along your journey,” Sean said.  He sounded closer.  He felt nearer.  _How’d I know that?_ Tommy wondered.  Then he let go of the thought, choosing instead to enjoy the grass and dirt against his laden and immovable body; to enjoy the rest he needed.

“I bring you water,” Sean whispered.  “I bring you bread.  Receive these gifts of nourishment.”

To Tommy, Sean’s words sounded like a chant.  Regardless, Tommy wanted to remain, to doze—perhaps sleep.  Instead he creaked open his eyes.  There indeed was a bowl of water and a plate of bran bread.  Tommy smirked.  He would have preferred an egg or a smoothie.  Not bread.  His body did not need carbohydrates after sparing like that.

“These are offerings,” Sean said, seated cross-legged behind the plate and bowl.  Closing his eyes, he bowed his head in meditation.  A calm descended around Tommy, matching the calm waiting for him at the brink of rest.  He looked again at the food and water, alarmed at how much determination it took for him to keep his eyes open.  His body needed to rest.  He knew this.  It was a fact.  However, if he really wanted to rest and recuperate, then he would need nourishment to do so.  Jason had not done that at the end of their battle.  He had slashed Tommy’s top and middle open, and stood by while he bled out, no doubt soaking the ground.  Tommy could not remember eating or drinking anything after seeing Sean in the quarry.  Sean had instructed Tommy to rest and Tommy had yielded.  In the wisdom of hindsight, Tommy realized that Sean had been testing Tommy and Tommy had failed it.

“This is what you wanted from me after you saved me,” Tommy uttered, trying not to push his voice.

Sean nodded, his eyes still closed.  “However, you passed your trial by choosing to live instead of choosing to die.  That is what Jason was waiting to see.  He did not slay you.  He offered you a choice.  Suicide or life.”

“Why?” Tommy asked, too tired to ask anything else.  It was such a simple question and yet was one of the most important ones he had ever asked.

“Tommy, Jason choose to be Evil not because of the evil within him,” Sean said.  “He would have been evil regardless but he instead choose to embrace what he was becoming.  In that battle, he showed you the choices he was offered and struggled amongst.”

Blinking, Tommy tilted his head toward Sean, peering at him.  It was easier.  He lifted his hand.  He grasped the bowl.  Pushing himself up, he sat on his heels.  He winced, steading himself.  Taking the bowl in both of his hands, his arms trembling, he lifted it to his lips and drank.  He swallowed.  “Thank you,” he said, replacing the bowl.

Mirroring Tommy’s pose, Sean inclined his head.

Tommy nibbled on the bread.  It tasted good and was only bread.  However, the humbleness of it refreshed Tommy.

 

* * *

 

Sean surveyed Tommy, proud of him.  The man had indeed risen to break through the hold fear had on him fear.  Channeling the Power of Thunder had been risky but one that seemed worth it.

“I don’t know if I can beat him if you couldn’t and you’re over six thousand years old, with all that experience,” Tommy confessed.

Sean smiled.  “True but teaching can shorten the learning time needed.  In fact—”  An artic gust blew through him, carrying an psychic whiff.  “I shouldn’t be able to sense that!” he whispered.

“What?”

Closing his eyes, Sean followed the astral scent.  A barrier obstructed his probe, familiar to him and almost natural to the planet due to its age.  He felt the magic that had crafted the barrier—the barrier in the Pacific Ocean.  “It’s still there,” he whispered.  “Goo—”  The triangular barrier was weakened.  Sean scanned the perimeter.  He gasped.  The barrier had been torn, and roughly mended.  She should have sensed that!  How long had that been there?

 _Lerigot!_ he thought.  Slowing the adrenaline release, he rose and turned, stretching his consciousness and awareness toward the dwarf-sized wizard’s home planet.  _“Lerigot, where are you?”_ he projected toward his friend.

No response answered him.

 _“Lerigot?”_ he asked again.

Breathing in, he astral projected to Lerigot’s home.  He looked around him, touching everything underneath the yellow green sky.  Chars stained the animal skinned hut.  Ashes littered a nearby fire ring.  He knelt by the ashes.  They were cold.  Too cold.  _“Yara?”_ he implored, feverishly searching the planet and solar system for Lerigot’s wife.

“Sean?” Tommy asked.

“I know where Rocky is,” he said, returning to Earth, sweat falling down his brow.  “I detected his presence during our earlier conversation and was trying to trace him when you arrived.  Lord Zedd and Rita have been blocking all of our attempts since last night.”

Tommy raised his eyebrows.  “Should I be impressed or worried?”

“Both and at this point terrified,” Sean said, wiping his brow.  “Tommy, Lerigot, Yara, and Bettel are dead.  Jason would have only killed them for one reason.”

Tommy’s eyes widened.  “Tell me he didn’t!” he whispered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stand by for the next chapter. Rumors are welcome.


	8. Water and Fire

Bare and cushioned between the mattress and covers, Rocky gaped at the burly teen beside him.  Rocky was sure that he was pale; wanting to check but not daring to look away from the brown eyes gazing back into his.  Jason, on the other hand, seemed only slightly flushed as one would be after a workout.  And the two of them had had a workout.  _I can’t be here, but I am!_ Rocky thought, his body prickling underneath glass.

Their arms rested beside each other.  Just feeling the mass of Jason’s arm, Rocky wondered how much Jason could curl and bench press.  _Unmorphed, of course._

Jason breathed in.

Rocky stiffened.

Brushing his fingers across Rocky’s, he closed his fingers around Rocky’s hand.  Jason sighed.  “Well, that was new,” he mentioned, smirking, the depth of his humor shattering Rocky’s stupefaction. 

“So do you spend most of your time masquerading as a normal guy?” Rocky asked.

Jason raised his eyebrows.  “I am normal,” he said.  “So are you,” he added.  Disengaging his fingers, Jason wrapped the massive girth of his arm around Rocky’s shoulders.

Rocky shuddered at the touch.  Jason’s arm was soft and firm at the same time.  _Cushiony,_ Rocky thought.

“I’m just discreet about whom of the same sex I’m interested in,” Jason explained.

“Do your friends know?  The other…?”  Rocky looked away, shuddering.

Jason relaxed his grip but kept it there.  Leaning in, he shook Rocky’s shoulder playfully, as if the two of them were on the football field.

Rocky was not convinced by the dissuasion.  “Does this change things?” he asked.  “Us?”

Jason shrugged.  “Does it have to?”

Rocky looked away again.

“Hey,” Jason whispered.  “You and I don’t have to do this again.  It’s fun… but we don’t have to.  I mean it.”  He said this genuinely, raising the inner edges of his eyebrows and lowering his outer edges.

Rocky thought for a moment.  “It was fun,” he said.  “Is fun.”

“You sure?” Jason asked, raising his eyebrows and eyelids, while peering at Rocky.

The slimmer teenager regarded the broader one.  “Yeah, I think I am.”

 

* * *

 

Rocky somersaulted through the blue turquoise, its salt scrubbing away the grime plastered upon his skin.  All the while, he smiled, enjoying the limbo and embracing the cool warmth of the water.

Needing to breathe, he surfaced, wiping off the water from around his eyes.  Mud still nested in his hair.  Grimacing, he raked his hair with his fingers, annoyed that salt was now mixing with and then supplanting the mud.  When his hair dried it would it would be stale, barren, and itchy.  _What a fag I sound like,_ he remarked.  Then he glowered.  Yes, he had chosen Evil’s side, but he had not chosen to hate himself.  _Only those that hate themselves use that word with that nuance,_ he recited, having learned that lesson long ago.

He hung his head, continuing to tread water.  _But what if I’m right to hate my—?_

Rocky stopped himself.  _Those thoughts will only distract me,_ he repeated.  Nodding, he dived underwater, plowing through the translucent blue and green.  He rolled over, paddling his legs mermaid fashion.  From here, the sun danced across the ripples about him, marking the only difference between the water’s two colors.

_I used to be blue,_ he thought.  Adam had been green.   _Now he’s back to black while… which am I?_

He was still the Red Ranger but that didn’t seem to be what he was asking.

Regardless though, he could still morph into the Red Ranger.  Jason had not confiscated his morpher and coin.  Rocky shook his head, sneering.  As if that could hold him back.  His powers were now a part of him.  Jason confiscating his coin or morpher would probably not hinder that.  Even if Jason destroyed his coin, he would still be about to morph.  However he thought better of that arrogance, choosing instead not to force Jason’s side.  While he could imagine it, he did not know how powerful Jason really was.  Until he knew that, it would be best not to challenge him.  Plus, he had sworn allegiance to him.

His skin became cold.  Rolling onto his chest, he freestyled back to the beach.

All the while, he wondered what color he really was now.  And if it mattered.

 

* * *

 

 

Rocky left his clothes on the beach, muddied beyond cleaning. 

Dry leaves crunched under his feet as he hiked uphill.  The leaves’ parents stood lushly about him, matted with a vibrant greenery.  Warm beyond California’s temperate climate, the air pulled sweat from his skin.  Surprisingly, he wasn’t drenched.  After a few more minutes, he felt better, cooler.  He glancing back toward the shore but seeing only trees and bits of blue sky.  Nevertheless the ocean’s aroma coated the air.  He pressed on from the shore.

Bits of jungle specked his vision, highlighting further diversity.  Pausing underneath the canopy, he gazed about him, turning only his head, then pivoted around him.  Trees blotted out most of the sky.  _This island’s beautiful,_ he thought, suddenly wishing that he had photographs from when his friends had been here to contrast with now.  Recalling their tales of when they had journeyed to and arrived here, he suspected that they had underestimated this island’s presence.  _This place is more,_ he determined.  All of the plants here reminded him of the South Pacific islands (his fascination with plants having never dissipated over the years).  Based on what he saw, he hypothesized that this island had existed in the Pacific Ocean at one time.   _Hard to believe it’s a prison.  Or was.  At the very least it had been off limits to outsiders.  But I guess we can’t call ourselves trespassers now can we?_

Blinking, he squinted about him.  It was so beautiful and calm here that he found its purpose incredible.  Even his friends had said as much.  _Maybe that was the point?_ he wondered. _Seal away Maligore with beauty instead of just force._

He racked his brains.  Rita’s prison had been a space dumpster.  Ivan Ooze had been an egg inside a force field.  However Zordon had chosen to seal away Maligore, a creature probably just as dangerous as Dark Specter, inside an entire island and some several miles around the island.  Basically a small portion of the Earth’s surface had been cut off from the rest of the world so that no one could ever release Maligore.  _Why?_ he wondered.  All of those villains had been dangerous, two out of three on a universal scale but still, he could not understand why Maligore’s prison had been so much larger.  He had never asked Zordon and Alpha that question.  Now, however, this island’s history fascinated him.  He decided to ask Jason about it sometime about its past.

Animal calls filled his ears.  He glanced about him, trying to catch sight of them.  Small mammals and reptiles jumped and scurried among the trees while birds lurked in or flew about them—their familiarity to other animals further reinforcing his idea that Murianthius had been a part of the South Pacific island collection.  Still, something else was missing.

“Where are the… what were they called?  Malacitans.”  He glanced around.  _No huts.  No clothes.  Or huts._   “Jason, where are they?” he asked.

_Find me to learn,_ invited the Monarch.

Rocky resisted the urge to snort.  There was only one place Jason would be.

He raked his fingers through his goatee and stubble, tugging out more salt and sure that he was going to draw blood sooner or later.  He thought of scrubbing it off in a river or creek if he came across one before rendezvousing with Jason but hesitated.  “When do you want me to join you?”

_Take your time,_ Jason replied.

Rocky waited.  He swept his gaze, anticipating Jason would say more.  He glanced about him, peering.

Jason remained silent.

_And observing,_ Rocky remarked.  He sighed, resting his hands on his hips.  His deltoids pressed into his upper back, constricting.  He had wanted to explore the island, to learn more about it before meeting up with Jason. 

_Take your time,_ he recited.  He had been taking his time:  enjoying the sunlight through the clear and deep blue sky, the warm air flowing across his skin, the crusted salt that blocked it, and taking in everything he saw, heard, and smelt.  He was here, on an island where life had shielded away a dangerous threat, but with Jason now in power, having assumed the evil throne, it was fitting if this place reconstituted itself.

He strolled onward along a slope, feeling for the back center of the island.  Maligore was dead but Jason was now here.  He could find Jason.  He did not need technology or a map.  His instincts could guide him.  And in trusting them, confidence sprouted within him, dispelling his doubt.  He no longer needed to rationalize his decisions for being and staying with Jason, both intimately and in allegiance because he accepted his reality.  In accepting this, he wondered if Jason had had a moment of clarity like this.  It would make sense if he had.  And if he had not, then perhaps Sean and the others should murder Jason and him.  Evil belonged in the universe.  It was the margin that good instead of nice was measured.  And if Jason needed one from the team to aid him better it be one who was strong enough to handle it then Trini.  The torture would have killed her.  Rocky would extend that mercy for as long as he could.  He and Jason had betrayed Good, which meant he could never resume his life on Earth as before, even in secret.  Just like when he came out as a gay man, he expected to have to come out as an evil being to the rest of the world in the future, for that was the future he had chosen.

Parting some branches, he stepped into a small clearing.  An empty doorframe of cut stone mounted in rising earth stood before him, its mound’s, enormity obscured by foliage and forestry.  The stone door lay splintered in the earth, cracked, crumbled, and jagged, its demolition a testament to Maligore’s strength and to the volcano’s last eruption.  Rocky stared at it, transfixed and humbled.

Taking a breath, he rose, crazing his gaze upward, beholding the behemoth.  Though wider than the Monolith on Phaedos, the place was imposing.  He had expected the volcano holding the Serpent’s Temple to be colder than the rest of the island, like when Jason had tested him.  Instead, the sun warmed his skin, grazing him with a light burn.  Not surprising, since he did not have sunblock.  While not cold—and defiantly beautiful—the place was creepy.

Lowering his gaze, he started down the brick walled tunnel.  Mounted torches led the way, illuminating clay amid the slabs of stone brick walls.  _Was I here all this time?_ he wondered, knowing that he could not know and possibly would not know.  Still, the question interested him.  He pressed on.

Reaching a breach on his left, he turned and walked into the chamber, wide in its perfect circumference.  Torches spewed their light, mixing theirs with the sun from overhead.  His hair stood up.  Nevertheless, he approached the ring in the center.

Jason stood at the rim, facing away from the entrance.  Rocky inched to his side, taking in everything around him.  The floor and walls were roughly smooth.  Jason stared into the pit, seemingly ignoring Rocky.

“What happened to the lava?” he asked, marveling at its absence from the room.  “I thought this place erupted.  Should be wrecked.”

“It did… another layer sealing away the pit from the world.  When I returned, I dug it out.  Threw the rest back into it.”

Rocky peered at Jason.  Then he gazed into the pit.  Mounds of black, swirled with frozen grey, matted the floor within.  Soot tickled Rocky’s nostrils.  He refused their request.

“This is where I changed,” Jason said, his voice barely carrying about the room.

“Changed?”

“I wasn’t the same after this.”

Rocky scoffed.  Grinning he gazed about the room and then back at Jason.  “I saw you when you came back,” he said, adding a few chuckles.  “You visited the hospital, remember?”  Jason did not change his expression.  “I don’t remember you sprouting horns back then.  I’ve sprouted leaves though.”

“I heard about that.”  His lips spread into a brief smile.  “Joking aside, though, _this_ was where I turned.  More than you did on that mountain.”

Rocky’s grin retracted from his cheeks.  He fought against glancing away from Jason.  A moment passed.  Jason’s getting good at this, he thought.  Snapping his gaze onto the pit, he breathed in quickly and exhaled slowly, trying to ease his tightening shoulders and kicking himself for look away from Jason.

“You choose my side, Rocky,” Jason said softly.  “You choose to come here.  But you’re lying.”

“Lying is evil.”

“Lying is deceitful.  Can be used for malice—but it’s not evil.”

Rocky glanced up and over.  Shit, he whispered.  Shuddering, he scuffling a few inches leftward, his shoulders hunched.

Jason, now fully facing Rocky, was staring down Rocky’s eyes, menace radiating from them as effortless as breathing.

_How does he do that?_ Rocky exclaimed.

“You’re lying to hide your shame.”

The air seemed to tighten within Rocky.  He wanted to ignore it.  He forced himself to.

“You are a gay man,” Jason continued.  “An _out_ gay man.  There is no honor in what you are doing.”

“Evil isn’t honorable,” Rocky defended.  “Come on. You know this, Jason, after all the instructing and peace work you did.  Evil is nothing more than selfish, boisterous pride and cowardice, those of whom practice it thinking that they are either right or entitled to misbehavior when their convictions have no ground to stand on.”

“And yet honor guides all of my actions,” the Monarch responded.

Rocky reared his head backward, all the while peering at Jason.  How could Jason have said that?  Said it with honesty?  Surely he hadn’t.  Yet clearly he had.  He shook his head, gaping at the Monarch.

“I held my wife prisoner and raped her, violating her mind.  I turned my back on Zordon’s rules, restored his enemies, and endangered this and other worlds.  I betrayed the good within me.  All in service of my highest self.  Whereas, you fractured your team and broke your boyfriend’s heart.”

Rocky gaped and then peered at Jason.  He wanted to protest but chose not to.

“Understandable but amateurish,” said Jason.  “Perhaps with time you’ll get better.  However,” pausing, he swept his gaze to the pit.  “I was meant to be evil, Rocky,” he said.  “It was more than my destiny, it was predetermined in my nature just as you were born to be gay.  I am rare among our race if not unique.  Sean explained that I was predisposed and predestined for evil before I attacked your team.  Why are you reeling from this now?”

Rocky did not turn away, though his stomach and quads shuddered.  His hands sweated.

“You kissed me in front of Adam and the rest of your team to mask your ignorance.  You are playacting, Rocky.  You know now to be cruel but how do you expect to be evil, much less my heir and second, if you don’t understand what I am bringing to the universe?  What I represent?”

Rocky remained silent, unsure of how to respond.  He should have realized that Jason would have seen through his rouse.  However Rocky had been in denial, naïve to the foolishness and thoughtlessness of his actions despite his decision making.

“What are you meant to be?” Jason asked.  “We can force you to become Evil but a slave cannot rule an empire without a slave master.  You would never truly be an heir but instead a steward.”

Burdened with understanding, Rocky’s guts sank, hollowing his chest.  He forgot how to breathe.  Jason had never wanted a slave.  He wanted a convert!  A spreading of his betrayal to Zordon and Good.  Who better to embody the triumph of Evil over Good than two former power rangers in succession?  Especially when one of them had their powers!  Gathering his breath, he peered into Jason’s eyes.  “Are you expecting to die soon?  Is that why you want an heir so bad?  Seems urgent.”

Jason surveyed Rocky.

Rocky’s knees quivered but he stood strong in his calves, activating his quads and abs.  He was standing in front of one the most powerful beings in the universe, questioning that person’s strength.  He wondered if Jason would smite or punish him for that.

“No, your second to last assumption was right,” Jason responded coolly.  “Us both converting to evil would be a blow to Good.  But if you are quivering in indecision for the rest of the time that you serve me, then I’ll destroy you and go back to Trini.  Or one from another team.”

_No,_ Rocky responded, glaring at Jason.  _I’m doing this to protect—_

Heat and flame blasted him backward into the air.  Crashing onto the floor on his side, he groaned aloud and coiled.  Fear, betrayal, and pain seethed within him.  He sneered.

_Being my heir and protecting Trini serve different aims,_ Jason communicated.  Standing tall, he stared Rocky down.

Rolling onto his back, Rocky winced, groaned and gasped.

_Do you want to stay because you don’t know how to leave?_ Jason asked.

Rocky gaped at the monarch.

_How to go back to the team your cheating on?_

Rocky could not deny the accusations.  He had thought them also.  “Get out of my head!” he screamed.  Suddenly, his limbs pounded into the ground, stretching outward near tearing.  Rocky cried out.

_I’m a telepath, Rocky,_ Jason commented.  _How did you expect to protect Trini from what you have no defense for?  She scrubbed her skin raw but wishes she could do the same to her brain and mind.  But she can’t.  Therein lies my victory._

_Your drive to save her was admirable.  Even I admit it.  But your approach was foolish, as an undisciplined teenager’s would be.  You can’t protect her._

“I…opened…myself—“

And Jason’s touch—the back of his fingertips—traced down Rocky’s neck to his nipple, squeezing it hard.

Rocky tensed, shuddering.

“And it was fun to reminisce.  To explore even.”

Suddenly Rocky felt as if Jason her atop him, naked with his left hand caressing Rocky’s back while his right other caressed Rocky’s left arm.  Invisible kisses pressed and pecked across Rocky’s face, lingering and pulling against his lips.

Rocky thrusted his hips into it.  Then the touch and pressure dissipated.  Rocky opened his eyes.  Jason remained were he had stood, having never moved.  No footprints approached or retracted from Rocky.  Rocky gaped.  “How did…?”

_I do not have to be in the same room to do the same with Trini._

And Rocky now understood how futile his sacrifice had been.  Had he been thinking rationally he would not have come.  Rocky was sure Jason knew this, partially expecting another fire blast.  He could not defeat Jason.  Not if Jason had this much power.  Besides Rocky was slowly exploring and understanding his own.  Wincing and gasping, he pulled and pushed himself to his feet, hardening his abs and quadriceps.  “I didn’t come to you to protect Trini from rape,” he stated.  “I came to keep her from being your queen.  She can’t handle that now.  And shouldn’t be forced to.”

“To force someone to do something against their nature is a base action of evil.”

“But I’m here as a volunteer, a willing participant similar to you.”

“My nature made saying no impossible, even after months of fighting against it, even using it against Dark Specter’s forces and himself.”

Rocky contained his awe, keeping his focus.  “But we don’t have months, which is why you called me here.  My guess is that Sean’s figured out where we are.”

“He has.”

“So let’s stop this grueling eval.  I wasn’t predisposed to evil like you are.”

“I was groomed for good, remember?”

“So was I.  We were both instructors.  You still seem to be one.  Look enough, Jason.  People can change.”

“You stand on this conviction?”

“I stand on my integrity,” Rocky avowed, glaring into Jason’s eyes.  “Why are we here?”

Jason, however, only surveyed Rocky.  “Come beside me,” Jason instructed, pivoting back to the pit.

Nodding, Rocky stepped to the pit’s brink.  “What’s in there?” he asked.  Black, hardened soil, powdered with ashes, lay in there, devoid of flame or spark.  Nothing moved.

“A test Tommy never had to take,” Jason answered, holding his right hand over the pit as if feeling for something that was not there.  “If I had thrown him in instead of trying to crushing his throat, not even the Zeo Crystal would have saved him.  And Maligore would have been stronger.” He suspired.

Rocky eyed Jason at this statement.  He glanced back at the pit.  Rolling his head around, he peered and gaped anew at the Monarch, wanting to Jason to elaborate.

Instead, however, Jason breathed in, sliding his eyelids together.  Breathing out, he raised his right hand, his palm facing upward.  A flame bloomed, its tongues stretching and snapping toward the sky.  “Maligore,” he chanted.  “Ivan Ooze.  Dark Specter.  Rage.  Malice.  Dominance.  With their names, and this flame, may Evil once again rise.”  The flame grew, yellow and orange whips snapping at the ceiling.  Swiping his hand from underneath it, the flame plummeted into the pit.  The floor cracked. 

Glancing at Jason, Rocky breathed in deeply.  His heartbeat quickened.  His palms sweated.  “Why is it colder now?”

“Give it time,” Jason said.

Shivering and prickly with goosebumps, Rocky snorted.  “It’s a volcano.  I’m naked.”

“Look into the pit.”

Folding his hands across his chest and shuddering, Rocky obeyed.

Red, orange, and yellow flames jumped up, spraying the room.

“Wait until the flames are white,” Jason continued.

Shivering more, Rocky folded his arms across his chest, hunching over.  “Jason, it was just a few seconds ago.”  His time on the mountain returned.  “Why is it freezing?”

“Watch.  Stay.  Accept your fear.”

Rocky nodded again, bouncing on his toes.  “Was it like this when you were here?”

“No.  It was hot then.  Tropical outdoors and almost unbearable indoors.”

Rocky nodded again, huffing now.  He bent his knees, maintaining blood flow.  “I thought Maligore was the one who turned you and Kim evil?”

“His power still resides here.  In me.  And soon,” he added.  “You’ll taste it.”

Staring back into the flames, Rocky smiled.


	9. Adam's Dilemma

Adam materialized upon the barren mountaintop miles from Angel Grove.  Sunburnt wreckage, charred from fires long since expired, lay mounted in heaps across the ground where they had crumbled.

The setting sun bled upon the desert floor, boulders, and wreckage, flaring from the horizon against the chasing indigos and blues of night.

Adam shivered.  Stuffed his hands into his pockets, he ambled about the wreckage:  the ruins of the Power Chamber, Zordon’s second home and base of operations on Earth built from the reconstituted Command Center.

While he had not been present at Power Chamber’s destruction, he, Tommy, and Kimberly, and Billy, and Aisha, and Rocky (he squeezed his eyes in silent groans) had seen the Command Center’s destruction.  Had Alpha 5 not teleported them outside, they would have been caught up with it.  However, they had witnessed the structure, their base as power rangers—the one place Evil was supposed to never touch them, explode.  Nostalgic and inspired, he wondered when their current base would be attacked and destroyed again.

A breeze stirred his forearms.

He sighed, mentally kicking himself once more.  It had been fifteen months since he had been here.  Rocky had been here since then but—

 _We should be here together!_ Adam asserted, his throat tugging.  _Now!_ he emphasized.  His eyes moistened.  Glowering, he wiped the droplets away once more.  “Focus, Adam!” he commanded himself.  “On today, not then!”  Nevertheless, his memories blared!  His remorse.

On every anniversary of the Power Chamber’s destruction, he and Rocky had trekked on foot across the desert to here from Angel Grove.  Two anniversaries ago, unfortunately, Adam had volunteered to cover for one ill staff member, forcing Rocky to trek alone to the memorial.  Rocky had not minded at the time.  Plus, Adam had hoped to resume that tradition the following anniversary.  However, when several instructors had fallen ill, Adam and Rocky had stayed, covering those they could not replace with other people.  Instead, they had prayed Shinto style after work on the anniversary, visualizing the memorial, ruins, and Zordon, bringing honor from afar.  Before he had died, Zordon had told Andros that his spirit would forever live in all that was Good.  During the year they constructed their studio, Rocky and Adam had prayed that it would be worthy of Zordon’s presence, hence the yearly practice of trekking through the desert.  Since the last anniversary, they thought they had.

Now, however, Adam wondered if he was wrong.

He peered about him, wishing that his and the other Power Ranger teams accomplishments would not be forgotten.  They had staved off full invasions, reconnected to mythological sources of Power said to be lost, conversed with aliens, overcome the loss of teammates and stood in defense of this planet.  Like the veterans of the World Wars, he was part of a legacy of defenders.  However, despite the years of service by the power rangers, no other monument existed.

Sneering, he shook his head, wishing he had time to cry.  He sniffled.

While he ruminated about honor, Jason, all the while, was on the moon plotting or enacting another plan to wreck everything the Power Rangers stood for, not to mention ending their lives.  Had Jason caused those employees to be sick?  Was that in his power?  Rita’s?  Zedd’s?  He did not recall either of them making rangers sick in the past.  Adam quietly snorted.  Ruminating on such conjectures without access to facts would only exacerbate his depression and anguish.

Still, whether ironically or fittingly, Adam was here while Rocky was not.  Fifteen months ago, Rocky had known and practiced honor.  How could such a foundation and practice dissipate overnight?  Rita and Zedd had demonstrated such craftiness during their original campaign against Earth.  Surely Jason could employ similar tactics and resources nowadays.

Adam shifted.  _Had that forfeit long ago added to you leaving us?_ he wondered, peering with sunken eyes into the sky toward Angel Grove.  The city lay obscured behind the horizon.  However, the path they had walked, their footprints muddied by breezes and other footprints, lay laden clearly in his mind, as clear a path as their journey from strangers into friends and then boyfriends.  His heart sank.  His body shrank, and his soul quivered.  He gazed upward, turning his head where the moon would appear that night.  _You’ve hurt me with this,_ he stated. _All of you!_   He wondered how he was even standing—how his legs still had strength in them.

He pondered further, peering.  He shook his head, dejecting those thoughts.  _Crazy!_ he remarked.  Those thoughts were messing with him.  Rocky had never mentioned leaving Adam’s side during the past fifteen months.  Rocky had even returned from the solo trip refreshed, invigorated, thought-filled, and hungry for a balanced meal as they usually were.  He smiled at that, finding new and old strength in the memory, yet the wounds remained. 

 _I still want clarity,_ he declared.  He wished to stand by Rocky, supporting him in whatever healing Rocky needed.  Hunching over, he perched his elbows on his thighs, pressing his face into his hands.  He shuddered again.  “I… still… love you,” he said.  Nothing had changed that for him.  Despite all that had happened, Rocky was the only person Adam wanted to hug and talk to.  To just be with.  Over the years, they had found sustenance beyond food and water in each other.  A sustenance that was more wholesome.  Flapping his eyelids, he wiped salt from them.  “I miss you!” he whispered, his wounds deepening.  Closing his eyes, he bowed in his head.

Electricity cracked familiarly near him.  _From numerous place,_ he noted.  _Seven_.

His teammates—even Trini—were there.  She and Adam locked eyes, sharing essays and nothing between them.  Taking Richie’s hand, she guided the newcomer to the Memorial, talking softly in his ear.  A pang buckled Adam’s ribcage.  _Maybe some healing will grow within her,_ he thought breathing through his discomfort.  He forced himself to remain cordial, refusing to desecrate Zordon’s memorial with dishonor.

Twilight tipped magic hour’s edges.

Crouching some feet from the front of the Memorial, Sean and Tommy assembled a pyramid fire with kindling and tinder, surrounding it with logs and stones.  Adam and Tommy glanced at each other.  Tommy nodded, returning to his task.

Adam returned one regardless, wondering if he was stumbling socially by doing so.

He felt inept.  He gazed at his shoes.  Getting through work had been arduous.  His head called for his pillow, mattress and sheets.  Yet the void was there, poisoning his sleep.  Wiping his eyes, he smiled, glad of his friends’ company but annoyed that he had not moved.  Yes, he needed to grieve—to feel through this.  However, he also needed to remember that he was more than just a hurt lover or a jilted potential fiancée.  He was a Power Ranger and an entrepreneur—a man with many responsibilities; one of which all of them agreed on by arriving here.  Sean had not summoned them here to socialize.  They would begin shortly.  Adam hoped that his anguish would not hinder his duties in the future.

“Adam?” Zack whispered from his side.

Adam turned to him.

“Listen,” he began, patting and then squeezing Adam’s shoulder.  “If you want some company tonight… I can be there for you.”

Adam’s eyelids fanned outward.  “You don’t need to do that.”

“Hey, I’m not climbing in bed with you,” he joked, flashing his carefree smile (Adam smiled to himself, acknowledging Zack’s boundaries, and the depth of their friendship), “But I’ll spend the night if you need someone with you,” Zack finished, staring into Adam’s eyes.  “Longer, if need be.”

“Thank you.”

“We’re all pulling for you.  And for Rocky to come to his senses.”

Adam chuckled, smiling despite himself.

Kimberly lay a hand on Adam’s arm.  “Hey,” she greeted.

Adam nodded at her, wiping his eyes again.

“It feels weird being here,” she whispered, fingering her morpher.  “With powers, I mean.  I mean, the last time I was here as a Ranger, I gave my Coin to Katherine.”

“Tell me about it,” Trini said, folding her arms closely to her chest.  “No Power Coin, but plenty of empathy.”

“No shortage of new this week,” Richie added from her side, running a hand down here back.

Adam forced himself to nod, staring at the ground.  Sounds of agreement chorused about him.  He breathed in.  Smoke accompanied his new breath.  He turned around.

An adolescent fire crackled before Sean and Tommy.

“Ninjetti,” Sean announced, “Join us in a ring.”

Adam scoffed, smiling despite himself.  The fire was fitting.  Thusly, he slumped along with his friends forming a circle with Tommy and Sean around the fire.  Standing before it, and amidst his friends—in this place… faced with what was to be done—he straightened his back and shoulders.  He needed to be attentive and participatory.  He was still a Ninjetti and a Power Ranger.  Those roles mattered and carried responsibilities beyond himself—beyond him being an employer, instructor, and lover.

 _Lover_.

He lowered his head.  “Sean,” he asked in a measured voice.

“Yes?” replied the other, inviting an answer.

No one else spoke.  However, they eyed him, concern written on their faces.

Balancing his head atop his neck, Adam stared into Sean’s eyes.  “Do you know for sure?  Has Rocky been in the pit?”

“I sense as much,” Sean answered.  “With the tear in the Triangle, it is now possible to sense and scan within it.”

“Can you tell where they are?”

“Not precisely.  The barrier is interfering with both my senses and our equipment.”

“I haven’t picked up anything either,” Billy supplied.  “Haley and I have been working on it—she and Ethan still are—but it’s still patchwork and guesswork.”

“We’ll need to teleport onto the island for more info,” Tommy relayed, “Keep out of sight as much as we can.”

Sean shook his head.  “Jason will sense us,” he affirmed.

Tommy nodded.  “Communication with Haley will be spotty but better than impossible.”

“That’s a leg up from last time,” Adam commented.

Kimberly tittered.

“Because of this,” Tommy continued, “It’ll be better if all of us are on the island at the same time.  Once we learn more, we can assess our options.”

“And not just with Rocky,” Sean said.

The others regarded him.

“If Jason has indeed changed Rocky via the pit,” Sean went on, “Then I fear that his true objective is to poison the earth with the evil from the Serpent’s Temple.  This could change the balance of Good and Evil throughout the universes and Morphing Grid, giving Evil a greater chance at dominating over Good permanently.  With the barrier torn open, evil is already leaking into the rest of the planet.  The sun and earth can mend the tear, given that the Triangle evolved into a symbiote of the earth but not quickly enough for us to ignore it.”

Adam inhaled, glowering into the air and trying to ignore his feelings and Sean’s words.  Breathing in again, he tried to sedate his anxiety.  He failed.

“Are you saying he wants to turn everyone into evil psychopaths?” Kimberly asked, gaping.

“No.  Some perhaps will turn.  However, most lifeforms will simply have mood changes leaning toward Evil.  The resulting strife amongst the population will make it harder for civilians to fight against Jason’s armies, reducing our allies.  Good will be outnumbered by Evil.”

“Additionally,” Trini uttered, her voice soft yet penetrating, “It took Zordon’s energy—his life—to stop Astronema’s forces.”  She beheld everyone else.  “All of them.”

Zach sighed.  “And we don’t have Zordon anymore.”

Kimberly bowed her head.

“Or Lerigot,” Adam muttered.

Many nodded at this notion.  Tommy, however, shifted, obverting everyone else’s eyes.

“What is it?” Adam asked.

Tommy shook his head, gritting his teeth while staring at the campfire.  He sighed.  “I don’t think Zordon’s dead,” he said.

“What do you mean?” Billy asked.

Tommy breathed in and out.  “This is gonna sound crazy,” he began, “But when Rita and Zedd were putting me under their spell, I could have sworn I heard Zordon’s voice.  It was only once.”

“What did he say?” Sean asked.

“The same thing he said when I sent him to another dimension: ‘Tommy, no’,” he recited.   “At first, I thought it was a memory.  But then he said, ‘Fight them.’  Sean… was I hallucinating?”

“No, I do not believe so.  Zordon was not lying when he said he would reside in all that was Good after he died.  I have spoken to him since his death but only briefly.  Given time, we could commune with him, but in the interim…”

“Perhaps an extra guide could be of help,” spoke a high, male voice.

Adam and company whirled around, gaping.

“Hello, Rangers!” sang a tall figure garbed in blue armor and a helmet, his voice echoing about the rocks.

“Ninjor!” Tommy, Adam, Kimberly, and Billy exclaimed.  Jumping up, they shook Ninjor’s hand and hugged him.  Smiling, Adam embraced his ally.

“You’re here!” Tommy gaped.

“Happy to be.  Oh!  And forgive me that we have not been introduced.”  Ninjor extended a hand to Zack, Trini, and Richie.  “Name is Ninjor:  keeper of the Temple of Power and protector of the Power of Ninja.”

“So, you’re the guy I’ve heard so much about,” Zack remarked.  “An honor.”

“It is my hope that we add and share honor in the coming days, Silver Ranger.  I am glad that your energies are balanced now.  Richie… brave, eager, and caring… congratulations on what you have achieved.”

Richie nodded curtly.  “Thank you.”

Adam smiled, warmth growing within him.  Sitting back on the ground, he slid his hand over his left ring finger.  He paused, his smile eroding into a frown.  He stared at the empty, clean hand.

“Sit, everyone,” Sean instructed.

Footwear scuffled in the sand.  The fire crackled.  No one spoke.

“Sean?” Adam requested.

“Yes?”

“Did you ever sense the same evil in Rocky that’s in Jason?”  Lifting his head, he peered into Sean’s eyes.

“I have never sensed anything akin to Jason’s nature residing within Rocky.  Hence, my own surprise at his betrayal.  Nevertheless,” Sean swept his gaze about the group, “Understand that it is imperative for us to reach out to and face Rocky.  If we cannot restore him to Good, then we must either neutralize or destroy him.”

Adam’s lingering calm shriveled at Sean’s last two words.  “Can he be saved?” he beseeched and demanded, his eyes moist again.

“Without Lerigot, I do not know.  Neither the Ninjetti nor the Great Power has been used in such a test.  Also, many of you do not have the experience with magic nor the Ninjetti to accomplish something so great.  If necessary, Ninjor and I may have to do this alone.”

“While Jason is pummeling us?” Zack asked, his eyes aghast.  “All in the same room?  Nah-uh, we’re doing this together.”

“Zack, the last time we used the Great Power for something like this, we all had to give our powers and focus completely,” Tommy responded.  “This is the best compromise especially if Jason or Zedd through something else at us.”

Kimberly gaped at Sean.  “But that could kill you!”  She gaped at Ninjor.  “Both of you!”

Adam agreed, beholding Ninjor and Sean with pathos.  He and his friends had just reunited with Ninjor for the first time in over a decade.  _Such is the fight against Evil,_ he thought.

“I know you’re like some uber-Ranger, Sean,” Zack began, “But…”

“Dulcea cannot help us,” Ninjor added.  “Unless we go to Phaedos.

“Leaving Earth right now isn’t an option,” Kimberly said.  And I doubt Jason would follow us.”

“Not without an incentive,” Trini chimed in. 

Ninjor nodded.

“And us leaving for Phadoes wouldn’t intice him.”  She scoffed, smiling with her lips but frowning with her eyes.  “He’d be interested but not enough to come after us personally.  Not when everything here is going his way.”

“We are still a team, Trini,” Sean reminded her.  “And we can meet his assault with just us.  Hear me, all of you.”  He stared into everyone’s eyes in turn.  “We _can_ do this!  Tommy and Adam, you are stronger now than you were when you faced Maligore.  Your team destroyed Maligore—”

“But Jason’s m—!” Trini blurted.

Sean held her gaze with iron.  “Correct,” he stated.  “But that doesn’t subtract from the fact that you are more powerful now then you were when you faced Jason those years ago.”

Adam regarded Trini, uncertain of how to take in this information.

“I’m still just a Ninjetti!  Nothing’s changed except he’s raped me twice!”

“‘To those who are Ninjetti,’” Sean quoted, “‘Anything is possible.’”  Sean held each of the rangers I turn with his eyes.  “Choose victory!”

The fire crackled.  No one looked away, but their mouths remained still.  Adam rubbed his palms together.

“We have to do this,” Billy stated.  “With all of us playing our part.”  He nodded to Trini.  “Even you.”

“Call me crazy,” Richie interjected, “But I don’t know how to stop a volcano, let alone a torn metaphysical barrier.”  He gaped at everyone else.  “How do we do that?” he beckoned Sean.

“I’d suggest my team’s zords from last year, but we had to sacrifice them in the last battle.”

“That’s why I asked.”

“Yeah, we could’ve used that Stegozord,” Zack chittered.

“It is a gamble,” Sean admitted solemnly.  “The intention is to stop Jason and Rocky before the situation escalates to that level.  If we can’t banish the evil from Rocky, then we may need to destroy him.  Can you do this?”

“Save the world by murdering a friend,” Adam muttered, his words stabbing his ears.  He winced, yielding to his heavy head while fighting against collapsing his chest.  His forearms tensed upon his thighs.  _Can I bury him—cremate him—if I’m the one who killed him?  Took part in it?  Can I live on knowing I did that?  For how long?_

He and Rocky had once led a lecture about how a person’s conscience impacts an illegal, immoral, and unethical actions.  The debate could be dispiriting.  He had once morphed into the original black Mighty Morphin’ Power Ranger to save Carlos, black Space Ranger from a monster even though morphing could have destroyed him at the time because the original power coins had been destroyed.  Nevertheless, when Carlos was in danger of dying, Adam had chosen to morph and then to fight.  He   He believed that now.

 _Or would I spare him,_ he continued. _Try to turn him back?  Can I make the decision—I know what I want—in battle?_   He shook his head.  “I was hoping we could save him.” he voiced.

“No more than we’d like to save Jason,” Tommy supplied.

“This is a difficult choice, rangers,” Sean commented.  “The question you must ask yourselves first is if destroying Rocky and Jason is necessary at this time.”

Zack gaped at Sean.  “Anytime we faced a monster we destroyed it.”

“Have you forgotten when Tommy was an evil ranger?  None of you tried to destroy him.”

“We couldn’t,” Kimberly said.  “He was stronger than us.”

“Very well.  How about when you and Jason were turned by Maligore?”  Sean peered at Tommy.  “Did you try to kill either of them?”  He peered at Adam.  “Or you?”

Tommy and Adam shook their heads.

“Did anyone?”

“No,” Tommy answered.

“Understand that this situation is different because of the knowledge you have.  Adam is correct in what I am asking you to contemplate.  I am also asking you to consider if you can follow through with killing Rocky if we decide and need to.”

Everyone sat in silence, the air rippling with restlessness.  Adam shifted his posture, considering the question he had been avoiding since Rocky left.

“Look,” Tommy spoke, “I don’t know if we have enough information to make that decision.  Last time I checked, no ranger has ever killed another ranger before.”

“You are correct,” Sean said.

Tommy inhaled.  “Well, we may not know enough but I know this:  we’re Ninjetti and power rangers.  All of us.  Not just because of our power coins,” he added, nodding to Trini.  “Bottom line:  We can’t let Jason keep messing around in the Serpent’s temple.”

“Affirmative,” Billy said.

“But Tommy,” said Zack.  “None of us have beaten Jason yet.  How can we hold him off and purify Rocky at the same time?”

“Especially if Jason has those Gargoyles waiting for us,” Zack said.

“It took all six of us to resurrect Zordon,” Kimberly said.

“There are nine of us today,” Ninjor reminded her.  “We therefore have a greater pull of power to draw on.”

 “But we don’t know how powerful they are!” she exclaimed.  “With Jason as powerful as he is and with Rocky with him—can Rocky morph after being in the pit?” she asked Sean.

“I do not know,” Sean answered, holding her gaze.  “However, that is certainly a question he is trying to answer.”

“Hence him coming after me minutes after we got our powers,” Trini said, staring more at the air within the circle then at anyone specifically.

Still heavy, Adam breathed in and out.  He opened his eyes.  “Maybe it has to do with this,” he said.  Reaching into his pocket he withdrew Rocky’s note.  Unfolding it, he began to read it.  “‘If you read this thank God!  I couldn’t wake you earlier, so I left without you.  I know what Jason wants with Trini so I’m going to stop him.  The others will just get in our way.  Protect her life, Adam.  Nothing else matters.  Rocky.’”  He glanced at everyone.

The fire crackled.

Adam sniffled.  “I found it in the kitchen,” he clarified.  “I’m sorry for hiding this, guys.”

“Understandable,” Sean commented.

Meanwhile, Trini, her eyes locked on the small piece of paper, stretched her hand for it.

“Trini, what does this message mean?” Adam asked, handing it to her.

She held it up scrutinizing every word on it.

“Trini!” Adam pleaded.

“Rocky is trying to keep me from being a slave, even though I already am.”

Adam puffed his cheeks, wanting to console and yell simultaneously.

“Breathe, you two,” Sean consoled.

Adam forced his lungs to inflate and deflate.  Trini half-heartedly sniffed.

“You’re only one if you make yourself one,” Richie mentioned.

“I can sense Rocky’s energies and emotions when he was writing this.”  She gazed at Adam.  “I can sense bits of you tangled with Rocky in this paper.

Adam peered at her.

“His words are genuine, Adam,” she said.  “He is sparing my soul but not my conscience.”

“Old though I am,” Sean supplied, “I am neither the god of the Ninjetti nor of life and therefore can offer no easy answers for you.”

Trini batted her eyes.

“Even Zordon didn’t always give us answers,” Billy stated.  “His guidance would be welcomed, no doubt.”

“Then let us see if we can reach him,” Sean proposed.  The others regarded him.  “Alone I have been unable to reach him as of late.  However, together… we may succeed.”

Standing as one, the rangers and Ninjor widened the circle, stretching out their arms toward each other’s shoulders, their fingertips barely touching.  They closed his eyes.

Breathing in, Adam closed his own, holding his head up and his chest open, receiving and giving energy.  “Zordon,” he muttered with his teammates, searching inwardly for the power he had used to help resurrect Zordon those years ago.  All of them concentrated, wordlessly praying with sharpened discipline honed from years of Martial Arts training.

"Breathe deeply and with ease, everyone," Ninjor encouraged.

“Remember,” Sean said.  “To those who are Ninjetti, anything is possible.”

Rocky’s face sprayed upon Adam’s mind.

“Focus,” Sean instructed.

Adam breathed in, and then exhaled.  “Zordon,” he chanted.

"Zordon," everyone else chorused.


End file.
